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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The King's Conquest 



ADDRESSES AND SERMONS 



By 
REV. FRANK WELLINGTON LUCE, D. D. 

of the Bast Ohio Conference, Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. Pastor First Church, 
Cleveland, Ohio. 




"He shall not fail nor be discouraged, until 
He have set judgment in the earth : and the 
isles shall wait for His law." — Isaiah 42:4 



Cincinnati: JENNINGS AND GKAHAM. 
New York: EATON AND MAINS. 



£X ?333 



Copyright, 1910, 
By Jennings and Graham. 



(gCU '368011 



THE KING'S CONQUEST 

Seriously Optimistic Addresses and Sermons 
for Modern Ministers and Laymen 

With sentence prayers and paragraph sermons 

These addresses were delivered before various Con- 
ferences, associations, and assemblies of ministers. The 
sermons from the pulpit of the church of which the 
author is pastor. The sentence prayers and paragraph 
sermons were printed first in the Weekly Bulletin of 
First Church, Cleveland, O., especially for the benefit 
of the sick, aged, and infirm people who were unable 
to attend public worship, and to whom a copy of The 
Bulletin was sent by mail each week. 



CONTENTS. 



ADDEESSES 

A Good Minister for the Times, - - 13 
Responsibility of the Modern Chukch, - 41 
The Modern Preacher and His Sermon, - 67 
Importance of Religious Instruction, - 93 
The True Minister's Attitude toward 
the "New Theology," - - - 123 

SERMONS 

The Birthday of the King, - - - 137 
The Magnetic Power of Christ, - - 157 
Benefits of Thanksgiving, - - - 173 
The Final Triumph of the Redeemer's 

Kingdom, 187 

The Heroism of the Prince of Peace, - 205 

PARAGRAPH SERMONS WITH SENTENCE 
PRAYERS 

The Dignity of Service, - - - - 11 

Responsibility to God, 39 

Persistent Fidelity, - - - - - 65 

5 



CONTENTS. 

Evolution in Grace, - 91 

Take Courage from God, - 121 

The Eternal Father Revealed in Christ, 135 

He Cares for You, 155 

The Glory of God, 171 

Filled with the Spirit, - 185 

He Changeth Not, 203 



PEELUDE 

Both ministry and laity of the Church of Christ 
have providentially laid upon them in this wonder- 
ful period of bewildering and complex activity very 
grave responsibility and most thrillingly hopeful op- 
portunity. 

Tasks that are awe-inspiring, yet pleasing, call 
for most diligent and zealous service, guided by well- 
informed and sanely poised wisdom. 

It is now high time that the Church, especially 
its men, should awaken to vigorous endeavor and 
undertake in the name of Christ our King the world's 
salvation, with a thoughtful and energetic seriousness 
that becomes those entrusted with the greatest, most 
far-reaching, and important business ever committed 
to human hands, brains, or hearts. 

Seriousness is not sadness. Indeed, timely serious- 
ness averts sadness and is the herald of gladness. 
Sane optimism is not a vague blindness that will- 
fully ignores a knowledge of obstacles and difficulties 
to progress, but includes "counting the cost." Jesus 

7 



PEELUDE. 

held the moral "plunger" up to criticism, and even 
justified the ridicule and disaster which inevitably 
came to the man who began "to build and was not 
able to finish," because he had substance enough to 
build only the foundation of the house he had created 
in his abnormal dreams. 

True, hopeful, serious optimism that fills the soul 
and thrills it with a prophecy of triumph, counts 
the cost, considers the difficulties, measures the ob- 
stacles, and then takes account of resources and 
methods. Having reached conclusions of ability to 
conquer, there being a reason for the hope that lies 
within, the whole body, mind, and spirit is nerved 
unitedly to do the very best possible. And often doing 
our very best is conditioned upon our knowing the 
very worst. 

Nothing is more damaging to the progress of 
the Bedeemer's kingdom in the world than unwar- 
ranted hope and false optimism, unless it is unwar- 
ranted doubt and unbelieving pessimism, which has 
as its motto, "It can not be done." 

All power is given unto Christ in heaven and 
in earth. Hence, "what ought to be done can be 
done." His conquest is sure when His power is ap- 
plied. Our task is not to search for power, if we 
have found Christ and live in Him by faith, but our 

8 



PEELUDE. 

task is a search for that which hinders the progress 
of His cause, the acquiring and understanding of 
methods that will apply His power to overcoming 
of them, and the inspiring of motives that will, 
through human lives, make vital the power of Christ 
in the accomplishing of its appointed purposes. 

Seeking, finding, obeying, and applying the laws 
of God is practical faith in God, and "this is the 
victory that overcometh the world, even your faith." 
Obedient faith commands power, even the power of 
God. 

At Pensacola, Florida, they told me of an old 
sailor who took the contract of extracting some 
troublesome logs which had been driven deep into the 
earth in the harbor. They protruded several feet 
above the water. Skilled engineers had failed to dis- 
pose of them. This plain man floated two large coal 
barges, one on each side of the protruding logs. He 
then ran a heavy timber across from one barge to 
the other. At low tide he chained the protruding 
logs to the horizontal timber. He waited, and when 
the tide came in the ocean did the rest. It is no 
vague dream of an enthusiast that "all things work 
together for good to those who love God," for love 
means the most careful obedience, and obedience com- 
mands power. Oceans, worlds, suns, universes, angels, 

9 



„ PEELUDE. 

archangels — even God Himself with all His agencies, 
work for good to those who have practical faith in 
Him. 

These discourses, which have each to do in some 
manner with the thoughts radiating from the sub- 
ject of this volume, were prepared and delivered with 
hopeful conviction and fervent prayer that they might 
help a little in the advancement of His cause whose 
I am and whom I delight to serve. Some of them 
have been published in magazine or pamphlet form 
and may fall a second time into the hands of some 
reader. 

Many who heard the discourses when delivered 
have kindly urged their publication, and for each 
of the addresses and sermons requests for publication 
have been made either by numerous individuals or 
by vote of assemblies. 

Hesitatingly, but hopefully, I send them forth 
on the wings of the printed page in this permanent 
form with the same motives that prompted their 
production in public utterance. 

The Author. 



10 



The Dignity of Service 

SENTENCE PRAYER. 

With earnest praise, God, for all material and 
spiritual blessings, and asking, in Christ's name, all 
needed grace to make us useful to the limit of our 
abilities and opportunities, we earnestly pray Thy con- 
stant aid to complete and perpetual consecration to 
Thy service. Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON. 

Text, Matt. 20: 28: "Even the Son of man came not 
to be ministered unto, but to minister." To be truly 
good is to be truly great, and the essential element 
of goodness is service. Goodness is not merely nega- 
tive; it is chiefly positive. Jesus taught the great and 
practical philosophy of being truly exalted, and of com- 
manding power by obedience. This was unique and 
radical. It is the philosophy on which all modern 
progress is based, and by which nature's powers are 
utilized. The philosophy of the world was, he is the 
greatest who commands most service. The principle 
of Christ is, he is greatest who serves most. Service 
is the measure of the Christian. 



A Good Minister for the Times. 

I take it that we are, each of us, possessed of a 
deep desire to reach the highest success possible as 
ministers of Jesus Christ. I am aware that this 
assumption presumes that we are ambitious, and am- 
bition, when rightly understood and controlled, is a 
very necessary power. Of all men the Christian man 
should be most ambitious, and of all Christian men 
the minister should be possessed of a burning pas- 
sion for truest success. I am aware that ambition 
is a dangerous power, but so are all powers danger- 
ous. We must handle and use dangerous powers. 

In the realm of humanity, goodness is greatness. 
Service is the measure of the man. Goodness is 
vital and aggressive, not merely negative and sub- 
missive. To be good implies being good for some- 
thing. A good minister of Jesus Christ is one who 
renders service to Christ and the Christian system. 
And the greatness of the minister of Christ is not 
measured by his scholarship, or by his intellectual 
brilliancy, or by his gifts of utterance primarily, 
though any or all of these may augment his useful- 
ness; but his greatness is measured by the elements 

13 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

which he possesses that find expression in Christian 
service. It was Jesus who brought into the world 
the wonderful principle that obedience and service 
command power. And it is this principle that has 
given nature's powers into the hand of man, and by 
this principle only can moral and spiritual power be 
acquired. 

The preacher of righteousness has ever been, is 
now, the preserver of society, the salt of the earth, 
the light of the world. 

When Lycurgus was making laws for Sparta and 
planning to save the world from sin by legislation, 
the prophets of God were preaching righteousness 
and weaving conviction into the social fabric of 
Israel. When Homer was building the story of Troy 
into deathless poetry, and seeking to eradicate evil 
by the genius of culture, Jonah was preaching the 
mercy of God to Nineveh. When Rome was being 
builded as a representative political and military 
force, Isaiah was preaching on the walls of the city 
of Jerusalem and announcing the coming of the 
Prince of Peace. When iEschylus, the theologian 
of paganism, was teaching ethical culture in Greece, 
Zechariah was preaching spiritual life and faith in 
God to the discouraged people of Judea and nerving 
them to rebuild their fallen city and rehabilitate the 

14 



A GOOD MINISTEK FOE THE TIMES. 

temples of the true and living God. New power 
given after the manger, the cross, the open tomb, 
and the cloven tongues of Pentecost, made more 
potent the zealous preaching of Peter, Paul, Chry- 
sostom, Savonarola, Luther, Knox, Whitefield, Wesley, 
Edwards, Asbury, Beecher, Simpson, and their co- 
adjutors, together with the armies of the King who 
have followed the declarations of truth, have been 
the saving and constructive forces of all that is good 
in human society. Christ made no mistake. 

The preacher is of no less importance to society 
to-day than in other days. There has never been, 
there is not now, there never will be while man is 
a man, any substitute for his ministry. 

The term minister means helper, and moral and 
spiritual help is the universal desire of the human 
soul. And to possess it, each heart sobs out in secret 
its muffled moan. 

We hear much about changed conditions, which 
have occasioned new and changed needs of religious 
life and service. While there is much of change in 
details, there is less of essential change than we are 
sometimes led to think. In every realm of human 
experience human needs are essentially the same to- 
day as ever. The eye must have light, the physical 
system food and water, there are the same cries of 
15 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

the mind for intelligent information, and physical 
and mental processes are essentially the same as in 
the centuries past. Humanity does not outgrow these 
essentials or these processes. The human heart is 
the same as ever. Sin, though in new forms, is the 
same in its essential elements and in its sources. 
Only the one Savior can meet the soul's need of sal- 
vation, and the same processes of soul and life — 
repentance, faith, and obedience to God — are the only 
means of salvation now, as ever, and must ever be 
the same while man is man and God is God. 

Now, a good minister of Jesus Christ has two 
chief elements — the personal element, and the official 
or professional element. Not all good men should 
be ministers in the sense of being ordained to the 
holy office of preaching the gospel. But every min- 
ister of Christ is essentially a good man. Protestant- 
ism places just and right emphasis on this point. 
It is necessary that he be not only a man of good 
intentions and of sincere purpose, but that he be 
a full-orbed man of as large accomplishments as 
possible to his gifts and opportunities. 

There is necessity for a good physical basis. Good 
health is not only a ministerial convenience, but 
abounding health is almost a necessity to the highest 
achievements of the holy calling. It takes not only 

16 



A GOOD MINISTER FOR THE TIMES. 

a good brain to generate good ideas which are ex- 
cellent productions of ministerial thinking, but the 
brain must have good digestive and circulatory or- 
gans to run it; not only is this true in a general 
way, but actual physical preparation for a special 
occasion is necessary to do the best work as a min- 
ister. The physical has such a close relation to 
the intellectual and spiritual life that the best phys- 
ical condition possible not only generally, but spe- 
cifically, aids marvelously in the best results in min- 
isterial work, both in the pulpit and everywhere. 
Mr. Beecher, a master pulpit power, said that a large 
part of his preparation for the pulpit was to "eat 
less and sleep more as Sunday approached." Parker, 
the great London preacher, said that he "husbanded 
his physical energies with a miser's care.'' 

The best intellectual preparation possible is of 
course a part of the equipment of a good minister. 
The schools have no copyright on an education, 
whether general or technical, but they are immeas- 
urable aids to an education. It is possible, however, 
for a man to have a goodly number of college and 
university degrees and not be a good minister. If 
college and university degrees are used as exits in- 
stead of entrances, as shields instead of badges, then 
they become hindrances and not helps. The most 
2 17 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

that the schools can do for you is to train the mind 
to methods of thinking, and form habits of study 
that will enable the student to gain knowledge and 
develop the intellect. If the graduation from col- 
lege and theological school is to be regarded as the 
finishing of the education instead of the commence- 
ment, then degrees are only agents of intellectual 
death. 

I do not think that this poem is from any of 
the old masters, but there is as much, and as valuable, 
history in it as there is in "Mary had a little lamb" 
or in "The old oaken bucket:" 

There was once a preacher named Ease; 

He had taken A. M.'s and D. D.'s. 

A doctor named Payne said, "My friend, it is plain, 

You are dying, dear sir, by degrees." 

There is no intellectual substitute for right-down 
hard work. No matter how brilliant, how gifted, 
how great have been the educational advantages of 
the minister of Christ, no man can be and remain 
intellectually equipped for preaching the Word with- 
out patient, constant, hard work. Not only is this 
true of the young man, but it is doubly true of the 
older man. 

The age demands of us the intellectual acumen 
of the judge, the intelligent sympathy of the doctor, 

18 



A GOOD MIJSTISTEE FOE THE TIMES. 

the keen sense of the business man, the instructive 
art of the professor, the poise and courage of a hero, 
the gentleness and self-mastery of a saint. We must 
administer with the wisdom of a statesman, and twice 
each Sunday or thereabout we must present in form 
and with interest to instruct and assist people of 
varied tastes, needs, and intellectual capacities in 
matters of most vital interest. Now, to do this we 
must work, work, work with the unremitting energy 
of a slave. Of all places for ease, the ministry is 
the last place to seek. There is absolutely no place 
in the ministry for a lazy man. Sermons must 
not be offhand, if they are to be worthy the name 
of sermons. 

A man met his neighbor one morning and said: 
"Good morning. I understand your wife is sick. Is 
she dangerous?" "No," said he, "not now; she's 
too weak." The only virtue of the offhand sermon 
is its usual weakness. It is too weak to be dan- 
gerous. Such a sermon usually has very little of 
truth or error. 

An extemporaneous manuscript sermon — and that 
is the weakest kind of a sermon — was handed to an 
examiner by a young minister, and on the margin 
was this note, "I wrote this sermon in an hour." 
The examiner wrote beneath the inscription of the 

19 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

author, "I should think so." Such sermons belong 
where an editor placed a- spring poem. The author 
brought it and laid it on the editor's desk, saying, 
"I shoved that of! in half an hour." "Well, I will 
not be outdone by a poet," said the editor, "I will 
shove it off in half a minute," and into the waste- 
basket it went. 

Winners in any field of endeavor have ever realized 
the importance of persistent, constant, painstaking 
work. Kean, the great actor, though suffering for 
the necessities of life, which his profession would 
bring him, refused to appear until he had worked 
with unremitting energy in his rehearsals of Sir Giles 
Overreach. He determined to present this master- 
piece of tragic drama as it had never been presented 
before. When he presented it, it was so realistic that 
such persons as the poet Moore were entranced, many 
people fainted in their seats, actors of years of ex- 
perience screamed with terror and forgot to leave 
the stage when their parts were finished, and Kean 
threw himself into the scene with so much vigor that 
he was so exhausted that he must be carried from 
the stage. Though that scene was enacted in 1816, 
it has never been obliterated from English history 
or tradition. 

Turner the painter worked so incessantly over his 
20 



A GOOD MINISTEK FOE THE TIMES. 

canvas that Euskin says, "his half-inches were in- 
finite." It took Gray seven years, writing and re- 
writing, studying and polishing, visiting again and 
again the scenes he sought to suggest, to write "The 
Elegy of the Churchyard." 

No one can read the Psalms of David and not 
be impressed that some of them are the works of days, 
weeks, and months. Who can believe that the 
Twenty-third Psalm was dashed off in a moment of 
poetic inspiration? It bears the marks of erasures, 
interlining, brain weariness, and heart flame that 
burns the great thoughts into glittering glory. 
Critics say that it took two Isaiahs to complete the 
wonderful book that bears that name, and if they 
would put their claims on the basis of its literary 
excellence, I could more easily believe it. For it is 
a literary wonder. 

If the minister succeeds, with all the necessary 
tasks assigned by his profession, he must work, work, 
work with the unremitting energy of a galley slave. 

But his intellectual effort must be supplemented 
by great, broad elements of rotund, manly character. 
He must be a gentleman with all that the comprehen- 
sive term implies and includes. Kind, courteous, as 
gentle as a child, with the most scrupulous regard 
for the feelings of others. But with these suave and 

21 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

courteous manners that would not wound the sorest 
soul, he must have manly strength, courage, stabil- 
ity, and heroic determination. A gentleman is a 
well-poised combination of the tenderest sentiment 
and the strongest and most rugged, manly force. 
A man who is to be a force in the world must first 
be a force in himself. Nature's voice everywhere tells 
of God's plan of combining beauty and power, 
elegance and force. The mountains, capped with 
snow, with rainbow ribbons forming draperies, with 
fleece cloud capes about rocky shoulders, shimmer- 
ing with thrilling and most delicate beauty, have 
beneath these delicate exteriors rock ribs that 
the thunders can not shake from their fastenings. 
The rushing cataract of Niagara, glistening in its 
georgeous splendor, its clouds of mists rising above 
the crystal crest, interlaced with festoons of rainbows, 
splashing in beauty like splintered stones from the 
pavement of paradise, and shimmering in the even- 
ing sunlight like countless broken fragments from the 
shattered sea of glass before the throne of God — such 
beauty as no tongue or pen can describe, and yet so 
much power that were it controlled and directed we 
are told it would drive the machinery of the continent. 
The minister must be a well-poised combination of 
gentleness and manliness, of courtesy, kindness, and 

22 



A GOOD MINISTER FOR THE TIMES. 

of courage, persistence; and the soft grasp of 
kindly courtesy, gloved it may be with sweet gentle- 
ness, must have, under the tender flesh of beauty and 
gentleness, bones and sinews that grasp with manly 
and persistent courage. 

There are times, and often, when to stand for 
truth and right, though kindly and firmly, is a neces- 
sity. When Jesus went into the temple where a dove 
trust had been formed, and where money changers 
were doing a lucrative business by charging high pre- 
miums for money that the priests would accept in the 
offerings, and with His scourge of small cords drove 
these theives tumbling over each other cringing, as 
His strong arm wielded the lash as He exclaimed 
with knitted brow, "It is written, My house shall be 
a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of 
thieves," He did more for righteousness than He 
would have done at that particular time, in offering 
temple services and prayer. 

The minister of Christ must not only be clean in 
his life, but he must be immaculately clean in thought, 
word, and deed. His example must be such as not to 
mislead the weakest of his flock. 

It is said of a leading minister that he was once 
asked by one of the members of the church of which 
he was pastor to occupy a box with the family at the 

23 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

theater. The minister said : "I hope you will excuse 
me, though I do appreciate your kind thoughtfulness 
of me; but a surgeon must not only be clean, but 
aseptically clean, lest his delicate work be impaired by 
him who should be the master of the healing art. 
Others may do sometimes what a minister ought not 
to do, and little or no harm come. I know you will 
excuse me from accepting, though I appreciate your 
kindness." 

In all matters of social and business life the 
good minister must be scrupulously careful of his 
purposes and intents, and also his conduct. 

The minister's example will do more to cultivate 
a taste for elevating instead of degrading pleasures 
among the young, and in scrupulously honest dealing 
among all, than any rigid enforcement of rules and 
laws can do. 

The minister of Christ, to augment his influence 
for good and not wield an influence that will be harm- 
ful, should always be scrupulously careful to avoid 
even the appearence of evil in matters of business, 
paying his bills with promptness and avoiding debt 
as he would avoid his worst enemy. Unprovided debt 
i r j what General Sherman named war, and its tortures 
are particularly intense to the scantily supported 
preacher. I am aware that this is a point which is 

24 



A GOOD MINISTEK FOE THE TIMES. 

hard to reach when the average minister has an in- 
come of $600 or a little more, and on this pittance he 
must live in the manner of a professional man, and 
his family must move in the circles of cultured and 
professional people. And I say deliberately, that 
while it is sometimes said that ministers are not good 
business men, there is not an equal number of men 
in any other business or profession who live so well, 
dress so well, contribute so much to religion, charity, 
and philanthropy and educate their children so well 
on the amount of money they receive as the men in 
the Christian ministry. And that is the true test 
of financial ability. This is not done without much 
care and planning to make one dollar do the work 
of two. And small as the income is, to do the work of 
the Master the income must be made to cover the 
outgo, and this often causes the minister and his 
wife many an anxious thought. 

I invite your attention now to some particular 
elements of the professional character of the minister, 
those which differentiate his from other occupations. 

There must be first of all on the part of a good 
minister of Christ a clear, personal conviction that 
he is called of God to the work of the ministry of 
Christ. All men are called to some useful occupa- 
tion it is true, and in an important sense. They are 

25 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

called by their natural fitness, by the laws of supply 
and demand, by the law of "natural selection." But 
the minister of Christ is called in a special sense. He 
is called by the law of "supernatural selection." 
Jesus said, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I have 
chosen you and ordained you, that ye should bring 
forth fruit and that your fruit should remain." 

The presence or absence, the weakness or intensity 
of this profound conviction will largely determine 
the efficiency of the minister of Christ. 

Then he must be passionately in love with his 
calling. Not necessarily all the details of it, but in 
the great end and purpose and with the accomplish- 
ment of it. To any other than one thus impassioned, 
the work of the ministry must be the veriest drudg- 
ery. But love makes all burdens light. Two poor 
children, one a little girl of perhaps nine, the other 
a little boy of four, were following the circus pro- 
cession, and forgot that they were wandering far from 
home. The little fellow became tired and sleepy. 
His sister, her own bare feet sore and muscles weary, 
took him in her arms to carry him, and he soon fell 
asleep. She was tugging away, her hair disheveled, 
Her face dusty, and a kind-hearted man said to her, 
"Can't you waken him and let him walk? He must 
be very heavy for you to carry." "0, no," she said, 

26 



A GOOD MINISTER FOR THE TIMES. 

"he is not very heavy, he ? s my little brother." Now 
that looks illogical, but it is not. Love makes bur- 
dens actually light. It gives wings to tired feet. 
It thrills weary muscles. Impassioned love for the 
work to which one feels especially called alone can 
give enthusiasm and moral courage. It may be that 
our fathers were too enthusiastic, for emotion that 
is intelligently directed is born of conviction, and 
that must be first conceived in the mind before it is 
impressed upon the heart. It is likely true that in 
some cases our fathers had a zeal, but not according 
to knowledge. But if so, it is to be feared that we 
have knowledge without zeal, which is the greater 
sin. Better the shout in prayer that could be heard 
for half a mile, and the "jerks" that would make 
the hair to "snap like a whip cracker," than the 
spiritual paralysis and moral death which sometimes 
in these last days holds the pulpit and pew in the 
chilly grasp of ice-embalmed proprieties. 

But the good minister of Christ has a clear, 
personal experience and is thrilled with a spiritual 
life born from above. There is a wide difference 
between being lively and being alive. The lion 
which Samson slew in the vineyards of Timneth was 
alive. Its bony skeleton a year after was lively with 
honey makers. The minister of Christ is lively be- 

27 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

cause he is alive. The spiritual power of the sermon, 
which is the chief work of the minister, lies in the 
spiritual power of the minister himself. The sermon 
makes its impress by two elements of power — by the 
truth that is uttered, and by the force of the minis- 
terial character back of the truth. One is the bullet, 
the other the powder. Neither does execution with- 
out the other. "When Burk exposed the duplicity 
and corruption of Warren Hastings, the English- 
speaking world was thrilled quite as much by the 
honesty, sincerity, and heroism of Burk as by the 
corruption of Hastings." 

When we read the sermons of Whitefield and Ed- 
wards, we wonder what there is in them to have pro- 
duced such an effect upon the people. The masterful 
sermons of Bishop Brooks and of Matthew Simpson 
seem tame when on paper compared with the thrill- 
ing results they achieved when delivered. That part 
which shot the glittering steel of truth into the soul 
of the hearer does not appear on the printed page. 
The man behind the sermon is seen but dimly in his 
printed utterances. The work of the minister is 
vitalized and made vocal by the living spirit of his 
own spiritualized personality. TJie sea-shell held to 
the ear utters the voice of the sea. But scientific 
experiment declares that the voice is not from the 

28 



A GOOD MINISTEK FOE THE TIMES. 

shell, but is the echo of your own hearths blood as it 
courses through your veins and pounds on the tym- 
panum of the ear. A dead hand and a pulseless ear, 
and there would be no voice from the sea. So the 
preacher may listen in vain for the voice of truth 
from the measureless sea of revelation unless there 
beats with thrilling life the living truth in his own 
heart. 

Preaching has been denned as the sermon in ac- 
tion. And there is a very wide difference between 
the sermon in action and the preacher acting. De- 
mosthenes, as you know, when asked for three rules 
of oratory, said, "The first is action, the second is 
action, and the third is action." But we are ever 
to make practical distinction between action and 
mere acting. Preaching is the soul, mind, and body 
in sincere rhetorical action. Mr. Spurgeon's homely 
rule for preaching is not far amiss, "Pill the casket 
full, pull out the bung, let nature caper." But that 
filling must include not only human ideas, but the 
Divine Spirit. Intellectual truth aflame with con- 
viction which is fired by the Holy Spirit — that is the 
executive work of the minister. Without the vital 
power of the Spirit we can do nothing worth while 
in our holy calling. 

More sermons die of heart failure than die for 
29 



THE KIXG'S CONQUEST. 

want of bones and sinews of intellect. If I may 
judge from the printed sermons of the age compared 
with those of other times, the modern pulpit is the 
best by far of any age. Intellectual ideas are im- 
portant factors. Cloven tongues of name sat on the 
heads of the Pentecost worshipers, while the Holy 
Spirit filled their hearts. The clear head as well as 
the hot heart is a necessity to the good minister, but 
if I may be permitted to say so, I believe that what 
is needed in the modern pulpit more than ideas is 
some powder of profound, Spirit-vitalized conviction 
to drive the bullets of truth. 

This is a wonderful Book from which we are 
authorized to preach and which we are authorized to 
expound to the congregation. There are many mys- 
teries about some of its teachings. There are and 
always have been some controverted questions in mat- 
ters of its deliverance. 

Posibly all of us have in some degree and in some 
respects modified our beliefs in some things, and may 
modify them again. Let every minister make as deep 
and critical investigation in matters of controversy as 
his gifts, his time, and his facilities will warrant. Let 
him turn on the light of investigation. Let the 
archaeologist's spade, the astronomer's telescope, the 
chemist's laboratory, the geologist's hammer, and the 

30 



A GOOD MINISTER FOR THE TIMES. 

linguist's literary interpretations flame their illum- 
inations on the sacred page. Truth can not suffer by 
investigation. But primarily, brothers, this is not our 
business. Our business is to help the faith of the 
faltering ; to lead the shattered soul to Christ, who can 
restore him ; to declare the incontrovertible verities of 
the gospel to a lost world. These are times of doubt 
and restlessness. Now of all times, brothers, if we 
believe anything with all our hearts, this is the time 
to declare it. 

There is no doubt but that post-mortem dis- 
section is a necessity and has done much to discover 
the laws of human life and has saved many lives. 
But the place to make such investigations is in the 
dissecting room behind closed doors, by professionals, 
and not by novices in the presence of members of the 
family who are suffering from the same malady. The 
place for a minister to make investigations in matters 
of doubt and controversy is in his study, alone with 
his books and his God, and certainly not to expose 
the ghastly skeletons of uncertainty and unbelief to 
those over whom the Holy Ghost has made him over- 
seer. "These things were written that ye might be- 
lieve." Men and women are struggling under unbear- 
able loads of doubt. It is the minister's prime busi- 
ness to help them cast that burden at the feet of 

33 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

Him who said, "I am the Truth." There may be 
some question as to whether a man should preach all 
that he believes; he certainly should not preach his 
doubts. While it is true that there are some contro- 
verted questions, there are some things — and they are 
the essentials — that are settled, not only in heaven, 
but in earth, and are established verities. Truth once 
is truth forever. When it is discovered once, it does 
not need revision. Two and two make four. Experi- 
ment shows it to be a scientific fact. It will never 
make three or five or any other number but four. 
What is true of twice two is true of the whole multi- 
plication table. All great mathematical questions are 
solved on the basis of the incontrovertible facts. They 
do not change with human opinion. If a man un- 
dertakes to run his business on the principle that five 
times five are only twenty because he has a new 
notion about it, he will find himself in great con- 
fusion, but he does not greatly confuse the business 
world in general. 

There are some vital bottom truths of the holy 
gospel that are incontrovertible and are established 
forever. They are not subject to revision. They are 
established by reason and experiment, and are as 
clearly scientific truths as are the results of mathe- 
matical or chemical experiment. 

32 



A GOOD MLNTSTEE FOE THE TIMES. 

The books called the Bible contain the word of 
God inspired, authenticated, and they speak with 
authority on all the questions of their deliverance. 
It would be too much to expect that by the methods 
by which these books were preserved that those who 
were their custodians were either so wise that they 
could not, or so good that they would not, either make 
mistakes in copying or make some slight interpola- 
tions. Critics from time to time have taken these 
books apart, examined them carefully, found some 
dust spots and a little foreign substance. Some views 
as to rhetorical method have been modified by schol- 
arship. But these are of minor importance to the 
preacher. The great central truth is that in which 
he is especially interested. What is it that makes 
these books so wonderful? Why, when a few years 
ago the Eevised Version of the New Testament was 
ready for distribution, the whole Book of Eomans was 
telegraphed to Chicago from New York that it might 
appear in the papers there twenty-four hours earlier 
than if sent by mail? Why were the publishing 
houses crushed with orders and the express companies 
overloaded with the new product simply because there 
was to be a few minor changes made in methods of 
expression? What is there so wonderful about this 
Book ? Is it its literature ? Yes, its literature is won- 
3 33 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

derful, and from a literary viewpoint it is worthy a 
place in every library of every language. Is it be- 
cause of its superior ethical teachings? Yes, its 
ethical teachings are superior to all the ethics of all 
the philosophers of all the world. Is it because of its 
philosophy ? Yes, its philosophy is far more sublime 
than the combined philosophy of all the ancients. 
From these viewpoints alone it is greater than all the 
books of all libraries of all the languages of all ages. 

But these elements of worth sink into insignifi- 
cance beside the one great purpose of its deliverance, 
to reveal Christ the Living Truth. The Bible is true, 
but it is not truth. It is only the record of truth. 
Christ is the Truth. The things that are written in 
the Bible are not true because they are written there ; 
they would have been and are as true, whether written 
there or not. But they are written there for us be- 
cause they are true. Christ the Savior of mankind 
is the Truth. The Bible reveals Him in prophecy, 
in history, in poetry, and by all the power of various 
rhetorical methods. But He has not left the unmis- 
takable evidences of His power to save and transform 
this old world to the risks and uncertainties of "lit- 
erary jugglery." 

As to the enormity of sin, we are not dependent 
upon human interpretations of the Bible. It is a 

34 



A GOOD MINISTER FOE THE TIMES. 

manifest experimental fact. It is evidently not a part 
of the divine plan, as some modern philosophers 
would make it appear, else when tested according to 
theory, sin would work out good. Evidently the 
saloon and brothel are not mere stopping-places on 
the highway from earth to heaven. Error is not truth, 
darkness is not light, vice is not virtue, wrong is not 
right, evil is not good. 

Sin is not merely an injection from without, like 
disease germs are injected into the body, to be pre- 
vented and saved from by good environment, else 
good environment would always produce saintliness, 
and bad environment would always produce villainy, 
and the experiment does not fit the theory. Some bad 
folks live in good houses, and some very good ones 
live in poor houses. 

Sin is not merely the result of physical condi- 
tions. The lancet and the medicine case are not the 
power of God unto salvation from sin, good as they 
are to relieve physical suffering. 

Sin has lost none of its enormity. Its vile stench 
of death can not be counteracted by a few drops of 
the rose water of culture. Its mighty cavalcade of 
vice can not be routed and conquered by the tin sol- 
diers of good environment. The virus of sin can 
not be eliminated by a few drops of belladonna or a 

35 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

few grains of quinine, nor can it be let out of the 
human system by the veins being opened by the lancet 
or scalpel. Sin lies deep in the human purpose and 
is engrafted into the human soul. Only the Hand 
that made the stars can unclasp the gripful grasp of 
sin. Only the divine chemistry of the cross can purify 
its corruption. Only the Great Physician can cure the 
sin-sick soul. 

An adequate Savior is a manifest necessity. Only 
supernatural power can save from sin. 

The immaculately conceived, Divine Christ is the 
chief and exalted theme of the good minister. With 
no apologies to science, learning, or history for de- 
claring Him to be the Son of God with power, I 
believe in the immaculate conception, the miracles of 
Jesus, in His Deity, and in His actual, tactual, mate- 
rial resurrection, because it is rational. It is easier 
to believe than the alternatives. The historical Christ 
is an established fact. I must believe that this Man, 
who was so pure that no fault could be found with 
Him, so wise that His ideas have transformed the 
world, who did such works as no other ever did, and 
whose tomb was found empty on the morn of the third 
day after He had said He would arise, and His tomb 
had been guarded by His enemies to prevent a rumor 
of His resurrection — I must either believe that this 

3fl 



A GOOD MINISTEE FOE THE TIMES. 

person was the son of a harlot, a false deceiver, an ig- 
noramus without principal, and that the world has 
so honored and loved such a character as to die for 
him by the thousands, and to live for him by the 
millions, and that this impostor has by his principles 
transformed the world, or I must believe that He was 
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin 
Mary; that He was crucified, dead, and buried, and 
that He arose from the dead and is ascended on high 
and is alive for evermore and has the keys of death 
and hades. To believe other than that He is the ever- 
living and adequate Savior of mankind is repulsive 
alike to every phase of intelligent reason as well as 
to every sentiment of the heart. 

And then, added to this is the experimental theory, 
which never fails. It is that principle upon which 
science is based. We are authorized to make the 
proposition to invite men "To taste and see that the 
Lord is gracious." Where is the case that has been 
too hard for the saving power of Christ when the 
conditions of repentance, faith, and obedience have 
been faithfully met? 

Brothers, our gospel is everything or it is nothing. 
Is it anything? Let two thousand years of test an- 
swer. Let the conquests of Christendom answer. Let 
our Churches, our Christian schools, our philanthropic 

37 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

and charitable institutions answer. When Jesus came 
there was not a home for the aged; there was not a 
single asylum for the feeble-minded; there was not 
a home for orphans; there was not a hospital for the 
poor. Let our modern civilization answer whether 
our gospel is anything. If it is anything, it is every- 
thing, and the great fundamentals of sin, salvation, 
immortality are eternal and incontrovertible verities 
that are not subject to revision of belief. Then, let 
us give our lives to their promulgation with a vigor 
worthy their importance, and account it a high privi- 
lege to be accounted worthy. 

Happy if, with our latest breath, 

We may but gasp His name; 
Preach Him to all and cry, in death, 

"Behold, behold the Lamb!" 

A good minister of Jesus Christ is a full-orbed, 
manly, Christian gentleman, as large as his gifts and 
opportunities will permit, consciously called of God 
to the specific work of the ministry, wholly conse- 
crated to the one work, impassioned with the dignity 
and importance of his work, deeply in love with the 
great ends to be achieved, rilled and thrilled with the 
Holy Spirit as his vital force and guide. 



38 



Responsibility to God. 

SENTENCE PRAYER. 

Dear Father of the one family in heaven and in 
earth, be Thou our comfort in distress, our wisdom in 
perplexity, our supply in times of need, our stay and 
support in times of weakness, and our hope when de- 
spair approaches, through the merits of Thy Son, our 
Savior. Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON. 

Text, Romans 14: 12, "So then every one of us shall 
give account of himself to God." Conscious, personal 
responsibility to God and our fellow-man is the salt of 
social safety and the jewel of personal character. As 
in material things no particular atom is actually in 
direct contact with any other, and yet all are so related 
that all atoms are dependent upon all others in some 
near or remote degree, so each individual soul stands 
separated and individualized, and yet each has an im- 
portant relation near or remote to every other soul 
in the universe and a vital relation to God. 



Responsibility of the Modern 
Church. 

Each has a personal, vital, and perpetual relation 
to God. The fact of such relation is not a matter of 
choice. As to what that relation may be, whether 
of friendship or enmity, harmony or discord, each 
may determine by choice of will and through the 
riches of grace, but the fact of such relation is a 
natural necessity. The religious nature is a part 
of human nature, and race consciousness asserts a 
severance of right relations between God and man. 
Not only such relations as God according to human 
ideals would approve, but man is not in such relations 
as he himself can approve. So that man is every- 
where striving for a right adjustment of his rela- 
tions with Deity, either the true God or some other. 
It is nothing that there is occasionally one who seems 
devoid of the religious element and is what Paul calls 
"reprobate," and modern science terms "degenerate," 
any more than it would argue against eyes being a 
physical part of humanity because occasionally a child 
is born blind. 

41 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

An amicable relation between God and man 
through the atonement in Christ on terms made 
known in the gospel, which is a revelation of Christ 
in prophecy and history, is the essence of the Chris- 
tian religion, evidenced by the witness of the Spirit 
in experience and further evidenced by the deeds of 
the life. God was not only satisfying the demands 
of justice to the obedient and innocent in His right- 
eous government in the plan of redemption, but "was 
in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." Re- 
ligion, then, is more than a creed, though it includes 
that. It is more than dignified ritualism, though it 
may be augmented by that. It is more than inward 
assurance or outward conduct, though it is evidenced 
by these. Primarily, true religion is a life, and "that 
life is hid with Christ in God." 

Now, life in any realm is myterious, can not be 
analyzed or understood. But whatever else life is, or 
is not, it is certainly power. Power in its manifest 
result, force, does not indicate the measure of that 
power, for power in any realm may be genuine and not 
find full expression, if indeed it find any expression. 

In an agricultural college in one of the Eastern 
States a test of the power of life was made by har- 
nessing an ordinary hubbard squash in such a way 
that the degree of pressure could be measured. At 

42 



RESPONSIBILITY OF MODERN CHURCH. 

first the pressure was slight, then increased to fifty, 
then to sixty, a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, 
five thousand pounds to the square inch, then the 
harness broke. Who can estimate the power of life 
couched in the vegetable world of vitality? 

As we rise in the scale of being, life's power in- 
creases. Logic is mightier than trees, and reason 
stronger than mere brute force. Love has often mas- 
tered reason, and sympathy has many times mastered 
judgment. Soul-power, heart-power is the mightiest, 
and religious life has its home in the heart. It is 
the life of God in the soul. The religion of Christ 
deals with the mightiest realm of power known to 
human experience or observation. 

There are several reasons why power in any realm, 
particularly in the spiritual, may be genuine and 
true, and yet not find full expression, sometimes no 
expression. It may be there is no necessity for the 
manifestation of that power; it may be that there is 
no opportunity, or limited opportunity; it may be 
there is lack of control and direction. These modify 
the manifestation of power, and limit its display. 
Religious life in the soul of the individual, and that 
life in the Church of God, is no exception to the 
universal law. In spiritual power, as with all power, 
its manifestation is in proportion to its limitations 

43 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

and not alone to its inherent potency. A great power 
may find small expression because of its limited ne- 
cessity or opportunity, or because of the unwise or 
improper direction and control. Even infinite power 
is thus modified and controlled in its displays. 

This world is manifestly shackled by some moral 
delinquency and evil. For all the suffering, irregular- 
ity, and corruption, personal and social, there is one 
cause, namely, sin against the laws of God. Sin is 
committed not by masses, but by individuals. There 
is one cure, only one, but that a certain one, for sin's 
ravages in the earth. That is the applied gospel of 
Christ. There is one agency to whom is committed 
the spread and application of the gospel, and to 
whom is promised divine accompaniment to the task, 
that is the Church. To the Church is committed this 
great privilege, and upon it is laid this grave responsi- 
bility. The power is adequate, for it is "the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." 
Yet truth compels the frank acknowledgment that 
after all these years, even centuries, since the Great 
Commission was given and the power pledged, and 
notwithstanding there have been unmistakable evi- 
dences of the power of God in Christ to save unto the 
uttermost "all who come unto God by Him," the 
Church is measurably failing to accomplish the work 
44 



EESPONSIBILITY OF MODEEN CHUECH. 

committed to it, in a manner or to an extent at all 
commensurate with the needs or the power pledged 
and proven to be at hand. Particularly is this true in 
our own country and in our own time. 

One hundred years ago in the United States there 
were but 5,000,000 of people* who did not be- 
long to some Church. Now more than 30,000,000 
are utterly estranged from any Church; not one in 
fifty attends church regularly, even professing Chris- 
tians absenting themselves with frequency, making 
church attendence a matter of convenience rather 
than duty, habit, and privilege. Twenty-five years 
ago in the average Protestant church in city and 
country there would be many unconverted people, 
even many who were not believers in experimental 
religion, in every service, often even in the prayer- 
meeting. Often the Sunday night service would be 
largely composed of people who were not members of 
any Church, and the evening audience was in many 
cases the larger of the two public services. Nothing 
drew better than a wide-awake revival, and often un- 
der the leadership of the pastor, with little preaching, 
great throngs of people assembled and with song, 
prayer, and testimony won to acceptance of Christ 
many of the throngs of unconverted people who were 



*Josiah Strong. 

45 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

in reverent attendance. Christian people planned to 
attend these special services. It was looked forward 
to as a harvest time to gather in the results of the 
pulpit ministrations and Sunday-school teaching 
which had gone before. 

Now it is too often the case, more often than 
formerly, and it is growing more so every year, that 
few people other than church members attend church 
services at any time, and they are especially scarce 
when "revival" meetings are in progress. Even 
Christian people often regard it as of vastly more 
importance that their young people should give the 
evenings to their studies, or even to amusements, 
than that they should be placed under the influence 
of special religious instruction that they might be 
set right in religious life. 

On Sunday afternoons and evenings, especially 
during the warm days of summer, in all our American 
cities, the throngs of people that crowd the street 
cars are not going to church, but to concerts, parks, 
summer gardens, and theaters. Many of our Prot- 
estant churches are closed entirely during the sum- 
mer months, and others closed in the evening, and 
the few that are opened, with a few rare exceptions, 
are very poorly attended, even by the members of the 
Church, and almost abandoned by those who are 
46 



BESPONSIBILITY OF MODERN" CHURCH. 

not members. A half-hearted energy — if, indeed, 
it may be characterized as energy at all — on the part 
of the vast majority of Christian people prosecutes 
the work of the Church in all departments. Only 
the fewest are fired with a holy zeal. 

The waning faith and activity of the Church, with 
the decreasing interest on the part of the non-mem- 
bers, is an indication that is at once alarming and 
interesting. These conditions, taken with the fact 
that we are living in a very unique time, in a very 
unique country, under very unique conditions, all of 
which make unusual demands for moral influence 
and religious work and service, should make the 
thoughtless pause and consider, and the careless stop 
and think. 

With crime increasing, with the drink curse grow- 
ing, with gambling dens and places of vice multiply- 
ing, with tides from the Orient and floods from the 
countries of continental Europe deluging our shores, 
centralizing for the most part in stagnant lakes of 
putrid humanity, where whole colonies of the de- 
graded and depraved of all nations, including our 
own, are massed together in ever-increasing density 
and ever-increasing filth, both moral and physical; 
where crime of all kinds grows like vermin in the 
dark damps ; where the home is being more and more 

47 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

abandoned and prostituted; and where the Church is 
not only neglected and forsaken, but has moved out 
to more respectable localities and has left these masses 
of the morally lost practically without the light of 
gospel truth and without the application of its prin- 
ciples — these and other conditions, equally startling 
and perilous, may well cause us to prayerfully inquire 
why the Church is not awake and active and potent 
in accomplishing the work to which it is plainly 
assigned. Only the uniformed or the dreamer can 
fail to see the alarming facts as they now exist. "Why 
does the mighty power of the gospel, whose potency 
when applied has demonstrated itself to be all that 
is claimed for it by actual experiment for more than 
nineteen hundred years, and which is God's ordained 
power to save the world from sin, as His light of 
the sun is His power for material illumination, fail to 
save with a breadth, might, and potency commensu- 
rate with the needs and proportionate to the power? 

It cannot be attributed altogether, or chiefly, to 
an inefficient ministry, for Protestantism never had 
a more cultured, competent, or moral ministry. 

It can not be attributed to the immorality of the 
membership, for moral delinquencies tolerated a half 
century ago would not be tolerated now, and the 
standard of morals is higher now than then. It is 

48 



RESPONSIBILITY OE MODERN CHURCH. 

certainly not that we lack equipment, for there were 
never so many or so good churches and other equip- 
ment as now. It is true that some of our churches 
are poorly located for the work we have in hand, but 
this can not account in any considerable measure for 
our lack, at least for the falling off of aggressive in- 
fluence, for our churches, especially the Methodist 
churches, are better located with reference to the 
people than they were one hundred years ago, when 
great revival power swept every altar. It can not be, 
as some claim, that the Church is antiquated, has 
done its work and must give place to something else. 
Those who make such claims should remember that 
it is incumbent upon them to show when and by 
what authority the Church was discharged from the 
duty, or when and by whom it was robbed of the 
privilege, of "going into all the world" with the gos- 
pel of Christ with the pledge of the divine presence 
and power. 

The fault can not be with the necessity, for there 
certainly was never more necessity than now for the 
application of the mighty gospel to individual and 
society. Certainly the power is not abridged, for 
only the unbelieving can doubt the might of the 
living God, whose presence is pledged to the Church 

and its work of evangelism. 
4 49 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

The parsimoniousness of the Church is not an 
explanation. I know in the average city it costs for 
every man, woman, and child in the city three times 
as much to pay for the liquor used as it costs the Chris- 
tian people of that town per capita for all that they 
contribute to the cause of Christ. I know that an 
expert ball-player will command a larger salary by 
half than a bishop. I know that the average bar- 
tender will get more pay than the average minister, 
and a coarse vaudeville actress can sometimes com- 
mand more salary than a trained choir singer of 
culture. I know these things, and they ought not 
to be. The Church ought to offer sufficient enumera- 
tion to those whom it employs so that they are not 
strongly tempted by the overbidding of evil. If it 
be said that all should be willing to sacrifice and 
serve the cause of God, then I will say, let that sacri- 
fice be mutual. There is no reason why a minister, 
or a missionary, or any other who serves the Church 
with time and talent, should do so for less than that 
same time and talent is worth in the markets of the 
world. Then the servant of the Church can make his 
contributions where he pleases, as others may do who 
sell their services elsewhere, and not be compelled to 
contribute more than their share, and where they 
would not choose to contribute it in many cases. 

50 



RESPONSIBILITY OF MODERN CHURCH. 

But Christian people are not, as a class, parsi- 
monious and stingy. They are not willfully negligent 
and careless of the results that should accrue because 
of the activities of the Church. They are not really 
indifferent to the salvation of the world, especially of 
their own communities and their own families. I can 
not believe that the toper loves his beer more, that the 
seeker after amusement loves his pleasure more, that 
the vicious loves his vice more than the Christian loves 
his God, his family, his city, and the world. I do 
believe that while the average Christian believes in 
the power of God in the applied gospel, he is not im- 
passioned with unbounded confidence in the present 
methods to meet present needs. People are with mat- 
ters of religion like they are with other things in some 
degree at least. Convince a man that an investment 
will bring good dividends, and if he has the money 
he will invest, provided it is safe and there are not 
greater dividends with equal or greater safety in some- 
thing else. Make it clear to the average Christian 
that his investment of time, talent, and money will 
bring results by the methods used, and he will hasten 
to make the investment. But he wants results. 

When, with present methods as every one at all. 
acquainted with facts knows perfectly well, "only the 
extraordinary minister, with an extraordinary church, 

51 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

by extraordinary effort, can register only ordinary 
success/' while the ordinary minister and ordinary 
church must utterly fail with present methods, and 
when the need was never greater and the power 
never greater, there must be a conclusion that the 
difficulty lies somewhere in the methods of work. In 
these tense times the only safety lies in intensity in 
religion, and that in other respects our methods 
should be fresh and up-to-date, that they may meet 
the needs of these times. 

As intensity in sin increases, there should cer- 
tainly be a corresponding increase in the intensity 
of religious zeal. These are no times for laxness in 
Christian effort. Crime and evil, vice and sin, espe- 
cially in our American life, are increasingly clever as 
well as increasingly active. It keeps the safe builder 
busy to outwit the burglar. There is a necessity of 
a widespread and tremendous religious awakening, 
and a great revival in spiritual zeal. But that is not 
sufficient. There is an even greater need of a com- 
plete revision, if not revolution, of our methods of 
work. We have adopted modern methods in every- 
thing else, but are slow to accept and invent modern 
methods of church work. In other matters we spare 
no time, effort, or expense to have everything up-to- 
date. It costs more, but the results are more satis- 

52 



EESPONSIBILITY OF MODEEN CHUECH. 

factory. It costs ten times as much to run a palace 
car from Akron to Cleveland as it does to run a canal 
boat the same distance. But the results are more 
satisfactory. The passenger on the palace car has 
every advantage, not only of comfort but of business 
precedence. But in the Church we forget that power 
must move by method adapted to the work to be done 
or it is impotent, even though the power be limitless. 

The crystallized method of the age which is applied 
to almost everything in this time is the principle of 
organizing the individual unit into a workable and 
adapted system for a definite purpose. Manufacturers 
do this, men of commerce do this, men in statecraft 
use that principle. This principle, of course, implies 
the obedience of every individual unit to the prin- 
ciple — each in his or its place filling the purpose of 
the designer. This is the principle that must in the 
final analysis be put into use in the work of the 
Church of God. 

We must have a new method of reaching the in- 
dividual soul and putting that soul in touch with the 
saving power of the gospel, for the individual is the 
point of contact for the potency of the gospel. It is 
the individual who must be saved if society would be 
saved. Those who need salvation for the most part 
can no longer be reached by the gospel in the 

53 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

churches, for they do not go there. It is useless to say 
we should make the churches so attractive that they 
will go there ; the fact is, that the theory is not prac- 
tical with the materials that need the power of the 
gospel most. Old-time revival methods, revered as 
they are for the good they did, are worn out and I fear 
must be abandoned, at least modified, if success is to 
attend the work of the Church. Street preaching 
accomplishes something with some people, but not 
much with many. It does some good, however, and 
ought to be encouraged. The modern system of 
evangelism is couched for expression in this trite 
motto that ought to have a conspicuous place in 
every church in the land, and hang in the home 
of every Christian family, "Every Christian an 
Evangelist." That is the method with everything 
now that wins — the individual comes in contact 
with the individual. The promoter who sells the 
stock for a large corporation does not appeal to the 
mass ; he finds his man, studies how to approach him, 
knows the taking points of his investment, and plies 
his arguments to the one man to whom he is at that 
time concentrating all his efforts to win to an accept- 
ance of an investment. 

The salesman of the product, sometimes in a 
school for the purpose, has learned how to represent 

54 



RESPONSIBILITY OF MODERN CHURCH. 

the article lie is to sell; he approaches his customer 
with tact and seeks to convince and win for a sale 
that one customer. Then he approaches another. 
The clerk learns to show the goods to advantage, and 
sells to one customer at a time. That is to be the 
great success of God's cause. It is a principle that 
was always in accord with best results, and never so 
much so as to-day. When a Christian man, not in a 
professional way, but as an acquaintance and friend, 
makes a telephone engagement with a man who is not 
a Christian, studying carefully the trends of mind, 
moods, and ideas of the man whom he is to convince, 
goes with prayer that he may have the presence of the 
Holy Spirit, and deals in the business manner he 
would in other matters of importance, and after an 
open talk invites the man to become a Christian and 
to attend the church, he will find that there will be 
a response that will be surprising. Suppose all 
Christians, or half of them, should take a few 
moments every day for such work — and who could 
not find time to do so? — who doubts but that there 
would be such a religious awakening in this country 
in the next six months as no country has ever seen? 
The churches would no longer be empty, nor the 
prayer-meetings forsaken. There could nothing be 

devised that would so thoroughly elevate the average 

55 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

consistency of life of the Christian, for when a Chris- 
tian is planning to talk with some one every day 
about accepting Christ, that Christian will be very 
apt to have an increasing tendency to walk in accord- 
ance with the precepts of the Master. 

Then we must revise our methods of awakening, 
educating, and gathering results. These are done 
largely by Church organization and pulpit ministra- 
tion. We are never to forget that the called ministry 
has a chief place in the dissemination of the gospel, 
and that preaching by the called ministry is a God- 
appointed method. Nothing is to take its place. 
There are various theories, some good, some indif- 
ferent, some doubtless worthless. It seems to me that 
the interests of the cause of God call for the ab- 
sorbing or expunging of many of the Churches and 
denominations of the time, some large and some 
small, for which there seems no longer a demand. 
Any individual Church or any denomination that 
does not demonstrate its right to live by practical 
Christian work should die, and will naturally die. 
However, I am not in favor of one great Church 
merger, any more than I am in favor of a great 
railroad or factory merger, and for similar reasons. 
We must deal with human beings, often very human, 
in Church work as in all things. There is no magic 

56 



EESPONSIBILITY OF MODEEN CHUECH. 

wand that transforms people into guileless and per- 
fect beings as soon as they touch the Church or its 
work. Had God waited until absolutely perfect be- 
ings were found to accomplish the work of the appli- 
cation of the gospel, it would have been some time 
before there would have been a beginning even. 

There is one ideally perfect model, the Man of 
Galilee. It is our privilege to be made perfect in 
love even in this life. It still remains true that 
for the most part the vast work of the Church must 
be done by imperfect and fallible people, with good 
aspirations and noble purposes, but with a little or 
much human nature still remaining. I do not think 
that the competitive element is entirely unreasonable, 
impractical, or unscriptural. We are to provoke one 
another to love and good works. And there is no 
doubt but that some kinds of work can better be 
done with one form of Church government, and 
some can be done better by another. Federation for 
matters of mutual interest and great world move- 
ments, but not organic union; unity, but not uni- 
formity, should be the motto of Christendom. 

It seems to me that the cities are now, and are 
rapidly becoming more and more, the strategic points 
for Christian work, and the thickly populated tene- 
ment districts the most fruitful places in which to 

57 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

plant gospel truth. Into these portions of our cities 
come the ever-increasing throngs of alien people from 
all parts of the world. The Church should equip 
every immigrant steamer with cultured and conse- 
crated men and women, to become acquainted with 
and take moral supervision over the immigrant, es- 
pecially the young girls without mothers and the boys 
without adequate guardianship. Keep track of them 
through other agencies after they land, and never 
lose sight of one of them until settled and employed. 
And then they should be in touch with some Church 
influence perpetually. Get the girls before they are 
taken for the "white slave markets," get the boys 
before the gamblers and confidence men get them. 
Save their characters and their souls to themselves, 
citizens for the State, in many cases workers for the 
Church, and the public treasury many times the cost 
of saving them by prevention, in the cost of criminal 
prosecutions and other public expense if they drift 
into the wilderness of humanity in our great cities 
without moral and religious influences. 

By all means maintain our family Churches, and 
fill them with families both in the Sunday-school and 
public service. It is impractical, unreasonable, and, 
as I believe, unscriptural to take our families into 
the slum districts for their church homes. The same 

58 



RESPONSIBILITY OF MODERN CHURCH. 

reasons for moving out of the slum society for the 
family home apply in the matter of a church home. 
I believe most thoroughly in the influence and power 
for good or ill of environment. During the formative 
period of the lives of our children whom we strive 
to rear in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, 
I believe it is our duty to keep them from evil in- 
fluences. I am aware that many do not agree with 
my position — that is not at all necessary — but I also 
know that the opposite theory is impracticable and 
void of results commensurate with the risk and 
sacrifice. The children of the good might have a good 
influence upon the slum districts — the slum districts 
would certainly have an evil influence upon them. 
I would advocate the necessity of gospel separatism, 
and get people out of evil surroundings as soon and 
effectively as possible ; that being impossible, I would 
earnestly urge the importance of improving the sur- 
roundings to the best possible. I would by no means 
absorb the family Church of the suburbs in the 
institutional Church of the down-town district. I 
would, however, plant an institutional Church, so- 
called, wherever needed, and many of them are needed 
in all our down-town districts. It should be not only 
institutional, but denominational. It should be a 
splendid building of refined architecture. It should 

59 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

contain splendid equipment and competent teachers 
for all departments of industrial instruction. It 
should contain cheery game-rooms, where games of 
skill, but none of chance, might be engaged in. 
There should be night schools, schools of art, reading 
rooms, bath rooms, and rest rooms, all of which 
should be well furnished and cheerful. There should 
be a large and comfortably seated hall, where every 
night and on Saturday afternoon there would be 
entertainments of music and other forms of elevating 
recreation for mind and spirit. There should be well- 
equipped rooms for Bible teaching and Sunday-school 
work connected with this auditorium. Then there 
should be a great and churchlike audience room, with 
pipe organ, comfortable seats, well-furnished pulpit, 
neatly decorated walls, and all equipment for com- 
fortable worship. Skirting this room should be 
numerous class rooms, which might be closed from 
the main room. There should be no meetings here 
save public worship. In this pulpit there should be 
as able a minister, in mind, in spirit, and in per- 
sonal magnetism, as is obtainable. We ordinary min- 
isters would do for the family Churches when our 
people are awakened, as they will some day be ; but 
in the pulpits of these institutional Churches we 
need the Simpsons, Spurgeons, John Halls, and 

60 



RESPONSIBILITY OF MODERN CHUECH. 

Beechers. I would have no public service here in 
the forenoon, that these working people might have 
the forenoon for rest. In the afternoon, when they 
would otherwise be going to the parks and concert 
halls, I would have an attractive Bible school, pre- 
ceded by a splendid sacred concert of voices and 
stringed instruments. In the evening I would have 
no public worship in the family Churches in the 
suburbs, but would have the public worship in the 
institutional Church. I would charge that minister 
with but little else than living with some great gospel 
theme all the week, coming into that pulpit on Sun- 
day night and preaching with all the power of a 
great mind, warm heart, and fresh and magnetic 
body, all consecrated to God and bathed in the spirit 
of prayer. Such a minister would grip the minds 
and hearts of the multitudes. I would want him 
to omit all slang of the streets, and in simple, dig- 
nified, pure English present with power the great 
verities of our holy religion. Such a minister preach- 
ing thus would draw Christian people from all parts 
of the city, and they, with their evangelistic spirit, 
which would be awakened, help lead souls to a per- 
sonal acceptance of Christ in the after-meetings, 
which should follow in the rooms skirting the audi- 
torium. 

61 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

Then, with all the equipment of this institutional 
plant, I would have a law department. Not to teach 
lawyers, but to teach the practical application of just 
law. I would put it in charge of as good a Chris- 
tian lawyer as could be obtained. The duty of his 
department should be to look after law enforcement 
and to agitate and advise regarding necessary enact- 
ments for the protection of the good. "It is the 
duty of good government to make it easy to do right 
and hard to do wrong." The Church should help 
make it so, that those who are determined to do wrong 
shall have a hard time of it. 

Now, in all these privileges and helps I would 
not have anything absolutely free. The motto every- 
where should be, "No pay, no privilege." Make the 
payments merely nominal in many cases, perhaps, 
but nothing free. Educate people to feel that what 
they receive is worth something, and that they are 
neither paupers nor robbers when they receive these 
privileges. Give people something for nothing, and 
if they accept they soon come to assume that you 
owe it to them. Make it so that any poof* boy or 
girl, any depraved man or woman, who receives help 
from the Church can hold the head erect without 
shame and humiliation for having been an object of 
charity. Charity is good. Build hospitals, infirm- 

62 



RESPONSIBILITY OF MODERN CHUECH. 

aries, and care for the unfortunate. That is Chris- 
tianity. But ideally it is the part of the Christian 
State and not the Christian Church directly. It is 
the business of the Church primarily to evangelize, 
and it should make all its plans contribute to that 
end. When the contributing young person from the 
down-town Church is converted, goes into the suburbs 
and makes a home for himself, he will not feel that 
the Church is a robber or a beggar when it asks his 
contribution for its maintenance, if he has been edu- 
cated to pay for his Church privileges. 

I am aware that this is no new idea in the main. 
I would, however, give far more prominence to the 
pulpit of the institutional Church than is usually 
advocated for it. I would, too, make the Church very 
prominent. If it is true that people do not like the 
Church, and therefore we must not, when we do any- 
thing for them in the way of moral elevation, let 
them know that it is the Church, then all the more 
shame on our methods of the past and all 4he more 
manifest is the necessity that we should speedily 
change the opinion of the masses of the people. 

I would have the name of the Church prominent 
everywhere. When a tired man heard a good con- 
cert, I would have him know that it is the Church 
that has provided it. When his daughter has learned 

63 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

to sing and thus take sunshine into the narrow home, 
I would have that family know that it is the Church 
that has made that possible. Even when the law- 
breaker feels the heavy arm of the law smiting him, 
I would have him know that it is the Church that 
has inspired it, and that the Church is determined 
that innocence and obedience shall have justice. An 
awakened Church, aroused to the importance of per- 
sonal evangelism with such modification in methods 
of work as will adjust the power of the gospel to 
the present needs occasioned by present conditions, 
will shake the foundations of sin, cause its mighty 
walls to fall, and will construct the kingdom of 
Christ upon the ruins of iniquity. Never was there 
such opportunity, never such necessity, the power was 
never more adequate. God give us wisdom to in- 
vent and apply suitable methods for the application 
of the power. 



64 



Persistent Fidelity. 

SENTENCE PRAYER. 

O Lord of life and destiny, help us to perform our 
duties faithfully, bear our burdens cheerfully, receive 
our blessings thankfully, run life's race patiently, and 
to receive our rewards joyfully, in Christ's holy name. 
Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON. 

Text, Rev. 2: 10, "Be thou faithful unto death." 
Human life, as a series of personal acts, forming per- 
sonal history and resultant in eternal destiny, is not 
like chalk marks on a blackboard to be erased and the 
crude experiments repeated again and again, but like 
a permanent painting, each line and shading, each dot 
and coloring making for the worth or ugliness of the 
enduring production. Each stroke leaves its lasting re- 
sult. Therefore, perform every act with faithfulness. 



The Modern Preacher and His 
Sermon. 

There are some modern conditions which make 
the successful preaching of the gospel an exceedingly 
difficult task. Indeed, it would be utterly hopeless 
were it not that the preacher is divinely called, com- 
missioned, and accompanied. 

Among these adverse conditions are the wonder- 
ful energies and activities, ambitions and accomplish- 
ments of our modern civilization. The most potential 
evils are always those that are in themselves good 
and are perverted. And Christianity's most power- 
ful enemies to progress and competitors for recogni- 
tion are the very forces which Christianity has itself 
set in motion and the very civilization which it has, 
under God, created. Christianity, through the agency 
of the Church, has created the marvelous conditions 
which, being perverted by selfish ambitions and pas- 
sionate desires for pleasure, as well as vicious tenden- 
cies of depraved human nature, make it exceedingly 
difficult to master the situation and gain and retain 
the attention, respect, and devotion of the people to 

67 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

the gospel of Christ which is God's only power unto 
salvation from sin. The mad rush for wealth, the 
overwhelming passion for pleasure are two channels 
through which the streams of worldliness flow, and 
their swirling gorgements carry on their sparkling but 
turbulent surface all that they touch, and the flow 
is away from the Church, the gospel, and the cause 
of God. 

The spirit of the age which possesses the public 
mind and heart makes it exceedingly difficult to do 
the work of a minister. The literature of the age, 
exciting, with its contorted ideals and passionate 
realism, tends to create absorbing and abnormal con- 
ditions of mind. 

There is, I fear, very little reading of literature 
that evolves normal tastes for thinking, especially in- 
dependent thinking, and the power of giving atten- 
tion to worthy ideas. 

There is much more leisure in this age than 
in any past age, and what the people do in their 
leisure hours when their day's task is done not only 
aids most in making their characters, but most clearly 
tells of their desires. Not what people do when they 
must from necessity during the hours of their daily 
occupations, but what they do when they are at leisure 
to choose what they will do, is the chief determina- 
68 



MODEEN PEEACHEE AND HIS SERMON. 

tion of their characters. There is so much to absorb 
and detract, to excite and impassion, to interest and 
amuse, to paralyze and slaughter conscience, that the 
average mind and heart is caught in the torrent and 
swept away from the Church. All these things tend 
to make the minister's task a very difficult one. 

Then, take it in a little higher realm of thinking 
than the merely secular occupations and leisure pleas- 
ures of the people. Christianity has created a spirit 
of peace. Thank God for that ! But that very spirit 
is perverted to weaken the might of the gospel and 
make it difficult to do our work. There is no peace, 
save at the expense of truth, between truth and error ; 
there can be no peace between right and wrong save 
at the expense of right, until wrong is vanquished. 
Jesus, while He is the Prince of Peace, also came "not 
to bring peace but a sword." Then, there is as a 
creation of the Christlife a widespread spirit of 
federation and unity of individuals in the mass. But 
there can be no federation of light with darkness, 
vice with virtue, truth with falsehood, excepting at 
the expense of light, virtue, and truth. Then, the 
Spirit of Jesus has created a widespread spirit of 
toleration, patience, and charity. This has been per- 
verted to the advocacy of toleration with sin and vice, 
with error and wrong. 

69 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

The gospel of Christ does not meet the foes of 
its progress in the same garb or armed with the same 
weapons to-day that it did in other days. The time 
was when the rack, the firebrand, the noose, and the 
sword, or perchance the hungry lion's paw and fangs, 
awaited the follower of Christ and the minister of 
Jesns. That time, while not past in all parts of the 
world, has no place in the enmity of the gospel in 
our land. Later the battle was in the arena of 
thought, and giant intellects battled for supremacy in 
their word struggles to establish truth. The lines 
were sharply drawn. Infidelity attacked the Bible 
and assailed religious experience. Logic, ridicule, in- 
vective, and all the arts of the logician and rhetorician 
were employed to vanquish alleged truth of the gospel. 
All the fundamental truths of revelation were boldly 
assailed. But this is not the chief danger of the 
present. There is within the Church, as well as out- 
side, a spirit of toleration with error, falsehood, vice, 
sin, and unbelief which threatens to obliterate all lines 
between the Church and the world, all lines between 
truth and error, all lines between right and wrong, 
between vice and virtue. Xow, the religion of Jesus 
is the most intolerant of all religions with that which 
is inimical to its teachings and principles. Jesus is 
the most intolerant of all religionists known to the 

70 



MODERN PREACHER AND HIS SERMON. 

world. He Himself declares, "He that is not for 
Me is against Me." He is not one of the lights of 
the world; He is "the Light of the world." He is 
not to divide the honors of world-conquest with 
others, but He shall reign "where'er the sun doth 
its successive journeys run." He is not one of the 
ways; He is "the Way." The making of His toler- 
ance to include tolerance with the foes of His propa- 
ganda has overwhelmed His Church with a receding 
tidal wave that threatens to wipe out the shore lines 
and inundate the fruitful fields of truth and right- 
eousness. 

Now, to do the work of a minister in these times 
requires much of skill and manly courage, much of 
patience and studious care, much of incessant labor 
and enduring faith, to say nothing of that indis- 
pensable requisite, the constant presence of the Spirit 
of God. There are two sets of elements constituting 
a successful minister. They are the natural elements 
to be cultured, and those acquired by grace. It is 
erroneous to conclude that grace can do what nature 
must do, or that nature can be cultured to perform 
what grace is designed to accomplish. There are 
some peculiar elements of manhood which naturally 
qualify a man to be a minister of Christ. There are 
some people who can sing, and there are some who 

71 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

can not because they have not the musical element 
in their make-up. It would be foolish to undertake 
to make a concert singer of such a one. There are 
some who could never become painters or sculptors, 
as there are some horses that could never become swift 
racers and others that could never draw heavy loads. 
There are some natural elements which a man must 
have in some degree and in well-poised proportion to 
qualify him for the work of a minister of Christ. 
Not only are there some physical conditions, some 
natural gifts of ready utterance, some tastes for study 
and mental effort and some degree of social character 
that takes polish, but particularly are there necessary 
elements of mind and heart peculiar to the calling 
cf a minister of the gospel. He who would succeed 
as a preacher must have a mentality that is decisive, 
that is able to reach conclusions. "A double-minded 
man is unstable in all his ways." The undecided 
man may not be a bad man at heart, his intentions 
may be the best. But he is a weak man, and there 
is no place for weak men in the ministry. A weak 
man anywhere is always a dangerous man, and he 
is exceedingly dangerous in so important a place as 
that of a minister of Christ. That some men have 
an over-cautious and indecisive mentality that they 
can not fully overcome, and that in some occupations 



MODERN PREACHER AND HIS SERMON. 

in life that may be all right and even a valuable 
asset, in the minister of Christ that type of mentality 
is ever annoying to its possessor and dangerous to 
the cause he represents. That doubter who believes 
no more than he sees is not the type of man for the 
modern ministry. 

Then, another element of the type of mind natu- 
rally qualified for the ministry in this exacting time 
is a keen moral perception or a keen perception of 
moral things. A refined and well-poised conscience. 
The best eye is that which sees farthest, most accu- 
rately, and most steadily the smallest object. The 
best ear which can distinguish faintest sounds the 
farthest distance and can define the character of the 
sound most accurately. It is a natural quality of 
mind and heart that is able to distinguish right from 
wrong according to the information and education 
of the soul. The bungler in moral perception is 
not the man for the Christian ministry. He who 
sees the moral issue in the smallest thing has a 
quality that is a necessity in the preacher. 

Then, he who has faith, the power that believes 
not contrary to reason, but which often goes far be- 
yond it; who is not limited in his acceptance of any- 
thing as truth by the narrow limits of logical con- 
clusion; he who has that element of trust and confi- 

73 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

dence in other intelligences, that readily commits to 
others than himself great and. valuable interests, has 
a valuable quality for the ministry. Now, it may 
not be a good thing for a business man to have such 
abnormal faith in humanity and in others than him- 
self. It might not be a good thing for a lawyer or 
a doctor, a teacher or a railroad manager, or a banker. 
And that very element often makes a minister a poor 
business manager and makes him the target for the 
business sharp or confidence man who comes to work 
his fake charity schemes. It may keep him poor all 
his life, because he can not sufficiently guard his in- 
terests against those who prey upon his confidence; 
but how he needs it, what a boon it is to him in his 
ministry of Christ! 

One other natural element I mention: a deep 
sympathy, a passionate love for humanity, that makes 
him suffer when others suffer, that makes him smile 
readily when others smile, that makes him happy 
when others are happy. A ready and accurate soul- 
response to the needs of the world about him ; a heart 
adjusted to the world's feelings. Now, that might 
not be a good thing for some others in other occu- 
pations, but the tenderest sympathy is a necessity in 
a minister. Maybe he would faint if he were called 
upon to amputate a broken arm, maybe he would be 

74 



MODERN PREACHER AND HIS SERMON. 

heartsick if he saw a foot crushed with a car wheel. 
Maybe he could not become a cool and calm surgeon. 
Possibly he would feel the tears start if he saw a 
horse with a broken leg, or a bird with a broken wing, 
and that supersensitiveness would not qualify him for 
some occupations; indeed, it might disqualify him, 
but no heart is too tender, too full of sympathy to 
be noble and glorious in ministerial qualification. 

It takes a peculiar type of man naturally to be 
a modern minister. While culture and grace do much 
to trim away the hindrances, develop and enlarge 
these natural powers, and inspire and fire the forces 
of the soul, natural qualities that are adapted to the 
peculiar work we have to do are necessary and in 
large degree, and without them the minister will not 
be happy in the work, nor will he be successful. For 
a chain we want iron, not sand. Eor a statue we 
need marble, not milk, much less water. As well 
attempt to make a chain of sand, a statue or temple 
of water or milk, as to make a successful minister 
with the requirements of these times out of one not 
in possession of these and kindred elements, in health- 
ful condition and large degree. 

Now, I am aware that it is possible to make a 
chain of sand. It may be melted with fervent heat, 
and out of the glittering glass links may be drawn 

75 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

and formed. I know that a statue may be made of 
water. Intense cold may harden into crystal ice the 
liqnid mass, and a deft artist may carve into lines 
of delicate beauty a statue of rare elegance. This 
ice statue may stand before a glistening palace of 
frigid splendor. I know that a statue may be, and 
has been, made of milk. The watery substance has 
been evaporated, the solid substance compressed and 
made dense under high pressure, and out of this a 
statuette may be carved, and has been carved, into rare 
beauty. There is, however, a great shrinkage and 
waste in the process, and such a statue or statuette 
is more of a curiosity than an expression of artistic 
ideals. 

For the exacting and trying spiritual service of 
these times a minister of the gospel must not be a 
chain of glass, broken with the first strain of dis- 
couragement or crushed with the first stroke of ad- 
versity or attack upon truth, but a chain of steel 
forged in the hot fires of God's grace. He must not 
be a statue of ice, to melt out of definite form under 
the hot rays of unbelief and error. He must not be 
a miniature statuette of condensed milk, a model 
merely, "a small imitation of the real thing/' but 
a massive, life-sized expression of the soul of the 
Master Artist who carves the destinies of men. 
76 



MODERN" PREACHER AND HIS SERMON. 

Not every man is intended of God by nature to 
be a minister. Not every man, not every good man, 
not every intellectually brilliant man has the raw 
material out of which a successful minister can be 
made. 

But while nature does much for the man whom 
God would have in the important work of preaching 
the gospel, a large part of the equipment is reserved 
£ ' grace. A knowable experience he must possess. 
Not that it is at all necessary that he should be able 
to say, as did John Wesley, "At about fifteen minutes 
of nine o'clock I felt my heart strangely warmed 
and I felt that Christ saved me, even me, from the 
law of sin and death/' A definite moment of time 
is not necessary, but a definite and certain belief in 
Christ and a consciousness of the sublime fact that 
God has for Christ's sake forgiven his sins, and that 
he is a child of God in a special sense, whether that 
consciousness came instantly or gradually. Not in 
the sense that all men are children of God, if there 
is such a sense — which, according to the Scriptures, is 
hardly warranted. All men are creatures of God, 
but if I read aright, some are "children of the devil 
and the works of their father they will do." And 
as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the 
sons of God." The man to minister has this con- 

W 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

scious experience that he is a child of God and is 
in perpetual consecration of all his powers to the 
service of God, and is in touch with the Spirit of 
God, dwelling in consciousness that he is called, com- 
missioned, and accompanied of God in the exalted 
work of his calling. Now, I readily grant that in 
these times especially the work of a minister is a com- 
plicated profession. It has more demands for skill 
and ability in professional ways than many others, 
perhaps as much as any other profession. And it is 
worthy of the study and consideration of the most 
able minds of the age. But while it is a profession, 
I am sure it is more a calling than a profession. 
It is true, I grant, that men are divinely called to 
other occupations, and that in a sense every helpful 
service is divine service, yet I am apt to believe that 
the ministry of the gospel is in a very special sense 
a divine calling. The minister is called and commis- 
sioned, anointed and ordained of God for His holy 
work. Jesus said, "Ye have not chosen Me, but I 
have chosen you and ordained you that ye should 
bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain." 
While these words were spoken to the early disciples, 
I can not escape, nor do I desire to escape, the belief 
that His modern ministers are called of Him, or- 
dained of Him, and accompanied by Him, and that 

78 



MODERN PREACHER AND HIS SERMON. 

thus in some way is permanence of fruitfulness to be 
achieved. 

Now, the man who is naturally qualified, and 
educationally qualified, and graciously qualified, will 
not leave the impression when he preaches which 
seems to have been made upon a little girl, who said 
to her mother regarding some statement that had been 
made, "Mamma, is it really true, or is it just preach- 
ing?» 

When a man feels that he is doing God's work, 
it must be serious business with him. And, brothers, 
it is my earnest belief that your business and mine 
is the most serious business God has committed to 
human agency. Not sad business, for sadness is ever 
to be distinguished from seriousness. Indeed, it is 
glad business if faithfully done, but it is nevertheless 
very serious business. Especially is it so in these 
strenuous times. If the minister now does his work, 
he must do it with the sermon. Pastoral work in 
the sense of going from house to house in the old 
way, especially in the city, is becoming more and 
more impractical. The best that can be done by this 
method is to keep in very superficial touch with 
the people that the sermon may the better do its 
work. In the average home the children are at school, 
the young people are at college or are employed, the 

79 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

father is in the office, store, or factory; the mother 
and wife entertaining or being entertained, and there 
is no opportunity, if the minister had the time from 
other duties, to come in sufficiently close touch with 
many people to do spiritual work to be relied upon 
by personal touch. It must not be abandoned, but it 
must not take the place of the sermon. The sermon 
must do the work, if the work is done. Only on 
Sunday, and then with extreme difficulty, can the ear 
be had for gospel truth. And what an opportunity 
it is when in these hurrying times you can get men 
and women to stop for an hour on Sunday and at- 
tend the house of God for the purpose of giving at- 
tention to divine things. No moment should be spent 
that does not furnish something helpful, that will grip 
the soul and mind of the attendant with irresistible, 
absorbing interest, that will compel his frequent 
thought during the week and his return to the house 
of God. 

Now, a large part of the sermon is in the minister. 
His personality, his spirit, his presence and mental 
equipment. A large part of it is in the congrega- 
tion. The expectancy, the spiritual and mental atti- 
tude of the attendants. Then, there is some of the 
sermon in the surroundings. In the architecture and 
artistic decorations of the place of worship, in the 

80 



MODERN PREACHER AND HIS SERMON. 

temperature and ventilation of the room. If I Had 
my way, every theological school should have a de- 
partment for the education of church janitors and 
church architects. And it ought to be a heavy fine 
for trustees to employ any not rightly equipped and 
qualified. 

But the larger part of the sermon is in the 
especially prepared message. No man should presume 
to go to the sacred desk on Sunday without the very 
best special preparation that his time, facilities, and 
abilities will warrant. Every man who preaches 
should be ready to preach. There is just one way 
to be ready, and that is to get ready. No matter 
how talented naturally, no matter how well equipped 
educationally, no matter how well qualified spirit- 
ually, no man can preach well for Him without the 
constant dig, dig, dig. Methods of preparation each 
must evolve for himself, for methods that are adapted 
to one are not always adapted to another. But there 
is no method of sermon preparation that will elim- 
inate hard work and give results that are not disas- 
trous. Old sermons when used must be rebuilt to 
fit the minister's mind of to-day, as well as the con- 
gregation to whom he preaches. He is not the same 
man to-day he was a year ago. He can never be the 
same again he is to-day. The sermon must not only 
6 81 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

fit his congregation, but most of all it must fit him 
and he fit into it. On that memorable occasion when 
the disciples caught a wonderful draught of fishes at 
the Savior's words, and came to the shore, where there 
was a fire of coals, Jesus said, "Bring of the fish 
ye have now caught." I suppose there is nothing 
quite so stale as a stale fish, unless it is a stale 
sermon. The people may not know exactly what is 
the matter, but they will detect something unat- 
tractive, if not repulsive, in it. 

The subject matter of a sermon in its essence 
will be determined primarily by what the preacher 
regards as the aim of the sermon. Too often the 
true aim is lost in the confusion of mere incidents 
to it. The true end of a sermon is not to entertain, 
though if it is entertaining it may the better ac- 
complish its purpose. It is not primarily to interest, 
though an interesting sermon will the more readily 
accomplish its purpose. To instruct and inspire faith 
in the essential verities of the holy gospel is the 
true mission of a sermon. If I understood it cor- 
rectly, it is the essence of your business and mine, as 
preachers, to awaken conscience, inspire faith in the 
tenets of the Bible, and to secure choice of will to 
their acceptance. "These things were written that 

ye might believe." Formal creeds are for the purpose 

82 



MODERN PREACHER AND HIS SERMON. 

of aiding the activities of vital faith. Unpopular as 
the idea is in some quarters, I verily believe that 
doctrine must ever constitute the bone and sinew of 
gospel preaching, if it is effective. And in many cases 
old doctrines. They should be declared, not because 
they are old or because they are new, but because 
they are true. Not old doctrines in old forms, but 
true doctrines, whether old or new, in best forms. 
Change is not always progress, nor is stability retro- 
gression necessarily. The very best type of progress 
is that which conserves the old that is true, takes 
on the new that is true, and casts off both the old 
and the new that are not true. The best type of 
progress in anything is on this principle. A modern 
office building of most approved and convenient plans 
and by most approved and enduring architecture is 
nevertheless of very ancient materials. Rocks that 
were formed in the seven times heated furnaces of 
creation before the human race had existence, save 
in the plans of God, are in its composition. The 
truly progressive minister follows Paul's injunction, 
"Prove all things, and hold fast to that which is 
good." There are two essentials of life in any realm : 
The power of rejuvenation, and the mysterious, 
changeless principles of life. Rejuvenation has two 
elements: Taking new food to be assimilated by the 

83 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

mysterious forces of life, and the casting off of worn- 
* out tissue by various functions of the bodily organism. 
Failure to take new food would starve, weaken, and 
ultimately kill. On the other hand, a failure to cast 
off the worn-out tissue would stagnate the activities 
of the bodily functions and invite or create disease. 
The principles of life are the same in any realm, and 
like all of God's laws, they never change. 

Now, the religion of Jesus, which finds its ex- 
ponency in the gospel of Christ, and which it is our 
mission to preach, is not merely a set of ethical prin- 
ciples and formal creeds, not merely morality 
touched by emotion, as Matthew Arnold termed it, 
but it is a life, a spiritual life, and that life is hid 
with Christ in God. This spiritual life has as its 
fruits love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, meekness, faith, and self-control. These are the 
works that give evidence of the faith within. Faith 
is best exhibited in works rather than in verbal state- 
ments or formal written creeds. "Creeds in coats 
are better than creeds in books." And it is true that 
"His creed can not be wrong whose life is right," for 
his life will be an expression of his creed. Formal 
creeds and doctrines preached are for the purpose of 
aiding living, vital faith, love, hope, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, meekness, and all the various 

84 



MODEEN PEEACHEE AND HIS SEEMON. 

spiritual elements, bring the expression to help the 
spiritual powers that produce these results in the life 
and experience. No doubt there are some formal 
creeds that should be cast off, having done their work. 
New spiritual food should be taken on, that spiritual 
rejuvenation may be experienced by modern believers. 
Controverted questions there certainly are; it is rea- 
sonably certain that there always will be. Let the 
minister search for truth. Let him turn on the light 
of investigation. Let his doubts be active, for only 
when there are doubts will there be investigations. 
But it is little less than criminal for a minister to 
carry on these investigations with himself in public. 
He has no right to hold public discussions with him- 
self on these controverted questions, much less to 
declare his doubts on any of these matters of faith. 
Let these investigations be carried on in his study, 
alone with his books and his God. Let him give con- 
clusions to his people. No man has a right to preach 
anything that he does not thoroughly believe, and he 
should have a reason for the hope that is within him. 
And if he does not believe anything, then let him like 
an honest man retire from the sacred desk which is 
dedicated to preaching, the declaring of truth based 
on convictions of the soul. 

We are often told now that we should give chief 
85 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

emphasis to sociology, man's relation to man, rather 
than to theology, man's relation to God. Much de- 
pends on where we place the emphasis. I am in- 
clined to believe that more emphasis should be placed 
on man's relation to God, for when it is settled, it 
will determine rightly his relation to his fellow-man. 
And we might as well expect to have the fruit with- 
out the tree, the stream without the fountain, the 
light without the sun, the effect without the cause, as 
to have man in right relations to man in society 
without securing first the individual's right relation 
to God. 

Now such a preacher in such a time, with such 
a message as I have briefly and very imperfectly sug- 
gested, will be thoroughly imbued with a profound 
humility proportionately combined with a sublime 
and gentle dignity becoming the high office of an 
ambassador of the King of kings and Lord of lords. 
An ambassador of the King commissioned to lowly 
and yet important service will not only be found 
in an attitude of humility becoming his lowly service, 
but he will also be imbued with the lofty spirit of 
serious dignity becoming the King whose messenger 
he is. A spirit which becomes the King's business. 
And, brethren, better have small audiences if we must, 
than to sacrifice this spirit of kingly seriousness and 



MODERN PREACHER AND HIS SERMON. 

becoming dignity so as to degrade our pulpits. The 
occasional minister (and may the number continue to 
decrease !) who hurls bar-room billingsgate and coarse 
slang, battering the Church with clubs of abuse, and 
bespattering the influence of God's called, ordained, 
and commissioned ministry with the slime of half- 
vulgar ridicule, is desecrating the holy calling and 
doing that for which account must one day be ren- 
dered to an outraged God. A crowd may sometimes 
be thus assembled and some excitement about reli- 
gion — even if it is not religious excitement, for which 
it is sometimes mistaken — aroused ; but at what awful 
cost are these results obtained! Better that pews 
should be empty if they must be, our churches closed 
if they must be, rather than that they should be 
filled to hear the Church berated, the ministry ma- 
ligned, and Christ's body in the earth crucified in 
the house of His friends. The Church has its faults. 
It doubtless is not what it might be or what it ought 
to be. Ministers of the gospel are doubtless many of 
them very faulty, and all of us come far short of 
what we should be in the majestic work to which we 
are called, for the Church, both laymen and ministers, 
are set about with human limitations and human 
imperfections. But these are the best instruments 
God has with which to do the work of practical re- 
87 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

demption. They are His chosen ones, weak and poor 
as they are. Their faults and failings, instead of 
being heralded on the housetops to be mocked and 
jeered by wicked ribaldry, and the more cheered be- 
cause they are heralded in the house of God and by 
those claiming to be of the "holy calling/' these fail- 
ings, if mentioned at all, should be for purposes of 
correction and with bated breath and tearful hesi- 
tancy, very much "as loving children would con- 
verse of the faults and failings of their mother." 
"Charity shall cover a multitude of sins," and should 
cover many more mistakes and shortcomings. Nature 
hides deformities and wounds. When the earthquake 
shock carves crooked gashes in the face of the earth, 
nature rims the gorge with trees and grasses, with 
flowers and foliage. Nature fills unsightly crev- 
ices in the rocks with mosses. She gloves the bony, 
crooked, and unsightly fingers of the trees with 
shapely foliage and flowers, and covers the scars. 
The note of charity, hope, optimism, encouragement, 
should predominate in the gospel sermon of this age. 
Sin whips and prods, it stings and pierces, it crushes 
and wounds, it distorts and hurts; let the gospel 
have the glorious privilege of calming and comfort- 
ing, of healing and soothing. Heavy hearts are 
often hidden behind a smile; discouragement often 
88 



MODERN PREACHER AND HIS SERMON. 

lies beneath a bold and brave exterior. "While Jesus 
was hard on wolves, He was very tender with the 
sheep." And we under-shepherds will rarely overdo 
the matter of tender kindness. With all the sturdy 
truth, let ever a gentle note be heard, that the droop- 
ing soul may have its portion in due season. 

The potential power of the minister and his ser- 
mon lies not only in the fact of the divine authen- 
ticity, authority, and inspiration of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, but in the minister's unquestioned belief and 
realization of that fact. There may be reality with- 
out realization. Realization of the reality is that 
which gives a soul of power to the modern minister 
and his sermon. And what an inspiring mission 
it is to be called, qualified, and divinely accompanied 
to declare in Christ's name the immortal, vital truths 
of the Holy Bible that shall never fail! 

Armies may bleed, dismantled of their broken 
swords and shattered shields, and their power fail. 
Nations may rise and fall and their political powers 
be only a memory. Cities may grow and then wither, 
their inhabitants perish, and only stately ruins tell 
of their forever-past glories. Nature may fade and 
change in its displays. The sun may be cooled by 
the chilly breath of the centuries and his fevered 
face turn pale and his fiery locks grow white with 

89 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

passing cycles of years ; the moon turn dark and chril, 
the stars blink paler until they are seen no more. 
Yea, the swift and tireless wings of electricity may 
grow weary and fall powerless, gravity lose its power 
of interlacing cordage, and the worlds let loose may 
fall in chaos; the stars dropping from their silver 
sockets in the sky like untimely figs when shaken 
from their boughs by passing winds, and the heavens 
may roll together as a scroll. "Heaven and earth 
may pass away, but the Word of God shall never 
pass away." 

To preach that Word is at once the most tre- 
mendous responsibilty and sublime privilege ever 
committed to man. When faithfully declared "it 
shall not return unto Him void," but it shall ac- 
complish the thing whereunto He sent it. The 
progress may be apparently slow at times, but one 
day "the knowledge of the glory of God" shall fill 
the earth as the waters fill the sea. The kingdoms 
of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our 
Lord and of His Christ. 



90 



Evolution in Grace. 

SENTENCE PRAYER. 

O Thou Giver of every good and perfect gift, we 
earnestly ask of Thee in the name of Christ, not for 
the blessings of personal comfort for ourselves, but the 
Spirit's fruits — love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- 
ness, goodness, meekness, faith, and self-control — that 
we may each of us be a blessing to others. Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON. 

Text, 2 Peter 3 : 18, "Grow in grace." Some Christian 
people are discouraged because they are so weak spir- 
itually. They say, "I make such slow progress in my 
growth in grace." Possibly it is so. Some might be 
able to secure testimonials to the truth of their claim 
from their neighbors, and possibly from their minister. 
But that is not so bad after all. It is not so much how- 
fast you grow, or how rapidly you go, so you grow and 
go in the right direction. Products of rapid growth are 
not always of most value. Indeed, they are usually of 
least value. If you are doing your best and going the 
right way, "The Lord will be your Strength, and your 
ultimate and certain destination is heavenly bliss." 



Importance of Religious Instruction. 

Correct information is a necessity to right ac- 
tion. While there can be no right action without 
right motive, it is equally true that there can be 
no right action whatever the motive without right 
information as to facts. The Holy Scriptures allege 
to be the Word of God in all matters of religion 
and morals, in all matters that relate to man's duty 
to God, to his fellow-man, and to himself. In them 
is all needed truth as to doctrine, and these truths 
do not exist elsewhere. 

Life's satisfaction and success is based and con- 
ditioned upon the principle of demand and supply, 
the supply being equal to the demand. Unless pre- 
vented from being properly applied, each demand 
has its adequate supply in all that God has done. 
To acknowledge that man has a religious nature is 
to with equal clearness acknowledge that he has re- 
ligious needs. The Bible containing God's revelation 
to man in the important essentials of religious truth, 
a knowledge of the truth can only be obtained by a 
knowledge of the Bible. We are in the bonds of 

93 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

conscious sin. To be free by the application of the 
truth, there is necessity to know the truth. Jesus 
said, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall 
make you free." Liberty by the truth is only obtained 
by a knowledge of the truth. 

It is God's way in all matters of information 
to the human intelligence and in the evolution of 
human character to bring the lower to the higher, 
the smaller to the greater, by leadership of those who 
have gone before. The mother leads her child by 
getting into its soul and mind, and even the first 
steps are taken and the first words lisped in imitation 
of those with whom the child is early associated. 

The important matter of morals and religion is 
no exception, but the fact is emphasized by the 
superior importance of man's religious nature over 
all others. 

All people have religious needs of which they are 
conscious. ISTo race has ever been discovered so low 
in- intelligence or so depraved in conduct that it 
does not have its god or gods, its sacred oracles 
which purport to be the revelations of its Deities. 
These records may be in characters on stone or bark, 
they may as in a few instances be only in the words 
uttered by alleged prophets, who teach their revela- 
tions to others to be transmitted where the art of 

94 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

keeping records is unknown; but wherever the race 
of mankind is found there is found the religious 
nature, and the religious needs are felt. 

Our modem civilization is based on the Christian 
religion, and the books called the Bible constitute 
its sacred oracle. The necessity, then, of religious 
instruction, that we may have religious information 
is apparent. And, like all other information, it 
should begin to be received in childhood, but not 
cease with childhood. 

Beside the personal needs of religious information 
that we may rightly appropriate religious powers to 
the satisfaction of our spiritual requirements, there 
is, in the modern religious civilization which the Bible 
and its teachings have created, a necessity that is 
imperative, that we have a wide and general knowl- 
edge of the Holy Scriptures, that we have such gen- 
eral information as will fit us for the common social 
and political duties of citizenship. 

Xo one can be even passingly well informed in 
literature without having a comprehensive knowledge 
of the Bible. There is not a single work of standard 
literature that does not make frequent reference to 
the Bible in some of its statements, and many of 
the leading authors of influence and power make 
numerous quotations from Bible writers. To take 

95 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

Biblical references and allusions out of Shakespeare 
would be like taking color out of painting. What 
is true of Shakespeare is true of Longfellow, Whit- 
tier, and peculiarly so of the Brownings. How can 
one ignorant of the Bible as literature ever under- 
stand the references of Alfred Tennyson in his won- 
derful poems to "The crown of thorns," the "manna 
in the wilderness," or of "Jacob's ladder," his "wrest- 
ling with the angel," or "Moses' striking the rock," 
or "the brand of Cain," or "Esau's rough hands," 
or of "Euth in the fields," the "sheet let down from 
heaven," or "Joshua's moon on Angelon," or "Jonah's 
gourd," or "Hezekiah's shadow," without a knowledge 
of the English version of the Holy Scriptures ? Read 
Tennyson and see how far you would get with it 
without your knowledge of the English Bible. 

What is true of our literature is true of our laws 
and our social customs that are established and ele- 
vating. Christianity and its legal ethics constitute 
a part of our common law. Our marriage laws, our 
usury laws, our public institutions for the care of 
the unfortunates, the guardianship and care of chil- 
dren — all these and other fundamental methods of 
public government are based on the Holy Scriptures. 
Even that old, tried, and just principle of law, "He 
who seeks equity must do equity," is but another state- 

96 



EELIGIOITS INSTRUCTION. 

ment of the Savior's Golden Eule. Our modern laws 
are built largely on the jurisprudence of Justinian, 
Charlemagne, and Alfred the Great, and they de- 
rived their laws from the Bible and made their legis- 
lation to harmonize with it. Our Nation is based 
on the principles of the Holy Scriptures. 

From the first State paper of Washington to the 
last State paper of our present President there could 
not be a complete understanding of their import 
without the recognition of some teaching of the Bible. 
What meaning would the great oration of Abraham 
Lincoln, which address is known in history as "The 
house divided against itself speech/' have to one 
totally unacquainted with the Sermon on the Mount ? 
Our courts have held repeatedly that this is a Chris- 
tian Nation. Webster, in his famous plea in the 
Girard will case in Philadelphia, said, "Genial, tol- 
erant Christianity is a part of the common law of 
the land." And Justice Story, in giving the opinion 
of the court, said, "Christianity is a part of the com- 
mon law of Pennsylvania." 

"Every State Constitution in some form recog- 
nizes Christianity." (Chief Justice Brewer.) To 
comprehend the commonest laws by which we are 
governed, a general knowledge of the Bible is a ne- 
cessity. So that from the most practical, every-day 
7 97 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

viewpoint, general information regarding the Bible 
is as much a necessity as a general knowledge of 
arithmetic or of the rudiments of grammar. 

Yet it has been chilled out of the public schools 
and is not taught in any considerable number of 
colleges in the curriculum of studies. The teaching 
of the Bible is become the special duty of the Church. 

There is, however, a deeper, broader, and more 
imperative need of Bible study than that which I 
have cited. There are universal soul-needs, and they 
are man's deepest needs. Life is freighted with 
adversities and perplexities, with mysteries of Provi- 
dence and experiences that mystify the soul. Con- 
scious sin scorches the soul with flames of guilt and 
lashes the conscience into painful laceration. Death 
approaches, and with it the uncertainties of the vast 
unknown. Man is conscious that he is not what he 
should be, he is not what he wants to be, he needs 
an ideal of conduct as well as a Savior from sin, 
from guilt, from sorrow, from trouble, and from eter- 
nal death. 

Nowhere in nature can he find the solution to 
these great problems; there is not the possible solu- 
tion of them in his own mind and heart. He can 
not know them unless he obtains that knowledge from 
the Holy Scriptures. For they contain the Word of 

98 



EELIGIOTTS INSTRUCTION. 

God, the revelation to the soul on these most im- 
portant questions of man's -relation to God, the es- 
sentials of our holy religion. This knowledge, like 
all knowledge, must for the most part be obtained 
in childhood and youth, if it is obtained at all; in 
the strenuous times of this age it is especially so. 
Youth is the time to cultivate a desire for all things 
that are good and elevating, else there will be no 
desire for them in mature years. This law and 
principle we recognize in matters of secular learning. 
In the culture of the intellect it is not the men 
in coats, but the little boy in kilts, who is just be- 
ginning his education, and who, if he becomes learned 
and well informed, weaves by diligence and hard 
labor the principles of mental discipline into the 
sinews of his being through life. 

The secret of the stable character of the young 
man Timothy was that his mother had taught him 
when a child, and in his youth he had continued, 
and now in young manhood he still gave diligence, 
"that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures 
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation." 
And that the influence on his life in that regard 
reached back to his grandmother Lois, who had 
given his mother Eunice faithful instructions in her 
childhood. 

99 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

The Church is God's chosen institution for re- 
ligious instruction and school of information in mat- 
ters of religion. "It pleased God by the foolishness 
of preaching to save them that believe." The holy 
Sabbat*h, one day in seven, has been set apart by 
divine authority as a special time for such instruc- 
tion and such information. The public service and 
worship of God in His temple has the chief place. 
Various institutions to supplement the pulpit and 
the sacraments have been used from time to time 
as occasion demanded, for in matters of religion, 
like in other matters, "Necessity is the mother of 
invention," and God has not fixed in His Church 
changeless methods, but has left that to the religious 
ingenuity of His people, however reserving the di- 
vinely called ministry ordained to preach and admin- 
ister the holy sacraments as the essential center of 
the Church, and nothing can ever be substituted for 
these, nor must anything else interfere with these 
without damage to the Church and the cause of 
Christ. As a chief aid in placing the individual in 
contact with the public worship of the Church and 
under the touch of the living Word by the living 
ministry is the family life. Anciently the father 
was the priest of the Church in the home. And the 
100 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION". 

importance of religious teaching in the home can 
not easily be overestimated. 

There has always been, however, some other 
method of detailed teaching of the Bible in con- 
nection with the temple of God and under the direct 
supervision of the Church whenever the Church has 
been successful. The Jews had special times and 
occasions which were frequent when, beside the public 
reading of the Scriptures and giving the sense thereof 
by the minister, rabbis, teachers, and instructors 
taught the Scriptures. And good Jews were for- 
bidden to live in communities where such instruction 
was not given. Jesus frequently taught the people 
as He gathered a few about Him, answering ques- 
tions they would ask, giving light on the Holy Scrip- 
tures, as well as to preach to assembled multitudes. 

During the middle ages of darkness religious in- 
struction declined. Preaching declined. Home re- 
ligion and instruction declined. Religious teaching, 
and hence religious truth, was shackled. With the 
revival of preaching came the revival of home teach- 
ing and religious and Biblical teaching in the Church. 
And no institution in the history of the Church has 
been more potent as a means of religious instruc- 
tion in the Church than the modern Sunday-school. 
101 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

It takes the place of and is really the rightful suc- 
cessor of the Jewish Bible school to aid the young 
and the proselyte to understand religious truth. 

The modern Sunday-school is a growth. It was 
not instituted for the purpose for which it is now 
used. It has grown both in greatness of numbers, 
wisdom of organization, and in usefulness. It has 
not yet reached its full growth in any of these re- 
gards. 

Eobert Raikes, a printer, of Gloucester, England, 
is credited with organizing and starting the mod- 
ern Sunday-school movement. He was a good-looking 
man, of fair complexion, a large man of magnetic 
personality, tall and rather stout, rather stylish in 
his dress and attire, wore a buff waistcoat with silver 
buttons, frills and ruffles on his sleeves, white silk 
stockings, and knee breeches, wore a brown wig with 
two rows of curls, carried a gold snuff-box and a cane, 
and wore a three-cornered hat. 

His town was a wicked place. It was the center 
of the manufacture of pins, and employed a great 
many boys and girls of the poor class. Many of 
these children were orphans and many others worse, 
as they were the children of drunken fathers and 
mothers. Those were the days when England was 
verging toward degeneracy; when every sixth house 
102 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION". 

in London was a dramshop; and*in most other 
cities a like condition prevailed. These children had 
no education, they had no means of going to school. 
Raikes conceived the idea of getting some of them 
together on Sunday, employing a teacher and teach- 
ing them in the rudiments of learning. Soon the 
effort proved successful, though it received bitter 
opposition. The first Sunday-school teachers were 
paid as day school teachers were. 

While some principles of morality were taught, 
and those who could read had the Catechism taught 
them, these schools were not held in churches. In 
England and America there was opposition when 
there was some effort made to hold these schools 
in connection with the Church. The Archbishop of 
Canterbury called a meeting of the bishops to see 
if they could not be utterly suppressed. In 1820 
a young girl in a Connecticut town gathered a little 
Sunday-school in the gallery of a church in the fore- 
noon. She was forbidden to continue, and was driven 
out by violence. 

John Wesley, who was just beginning his famous 
career when the Sunday-school movement began, saw 
in it a great possibility for good, and gave it his 
support, but cautioned against possible abuses. It 
has now become one of the most potent aids to the 
103 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

Church that is known in modern times. The first 
Sunday-schools in America were organized about 
1790 or 1800. There is no definite information, and 
several places claim the honor. In 1826 there were 
180,000 pupils in the Sunday-schools of the country, 
or 1.8% of the population. In 1905 there were 
enrolled in the Sunday-schools of the country, of all 
denominations, 11,251,009, or 14.7% of the popu- 
lation. Few religious movements in history have been 
so marvelous in growth as the modern Sunday-school, 
and few have so much of possibility for good, hence 
so much possibility of evil if not rightfully used. 

To make the most of Sunday-school possibilities 
requires at this stage of its growth prayerful con- 
sideration. 

All good things and powers are dangerous in 
proportion to their power for good. They are dan- 
gerous when excessive, they are dangerous when 
wrongly directed. 

The purpose of the Sunday-school in its rela- 
tion to religious instruction is to promote the devout 
study of the Word of God, and through that study 
to bring into touch with the public services and 
ultimately into the Church and Christian fellowship 
those who are influenced by the Sunday-school work. 
Ultimately to bring from the family through the 
104 



EELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

Sunday-school into the Church those who are en- 
rolled as members. All that aids to that end helps 
to reach the true ends of Sunday-school work; all 
that does not aid to that end is a failure in Sunday- 
school work; anything that hinders that end is a 
hindrance to the objects of the Sunday-school work. 

Some Cautions Against Possible Abuses of 
Sunday-school Work Which Prevent or Hin- 
der the Accomplishment of Greatest Good. 

The ends and purposes of the Sunday-school are 
prevented when by any means the Sunday-school 
becomes in any degree a competitor of the public 
worship of the Church. 

It is necessary for each individual to have fixed 
very thoroughly the right and proper place of the 
Sunday-school and the public service and all other 
departments of Christian work in these times, when 
there is so much to be done, so many ways of doing 
things, and so little time in which to do what needs 
to be done. 

John Wanamaker, who is unquestioned authority 
in Sunday-schools matters, says that "the pulpit is 
the head and heart of the Church, and the Sunday- 
school is its right hand." That figure does not 
come far from expressing the relation which Jesus 
105 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

gives to the ministrations of the Church and all 
those institutions which the Church has used from 
time to time to augment the work of the Church. 

The Sunday-school is not a children's Church, or 
the teacher's Church, or anybody's Church. That 
is not its function. When it is made so, it becomes 
not an auxiliary and an aid to the Church, but a 
competitor of the Church, and instead of bringing 
people into the Church, trains people out of the 
Church. 

I feel certain that a note of warning throughout 
the entire Church of the entire land is needed at this 
point when facts are considered. 

There never was a time when, according to the 
number of members of the Protestant Church, there 
was so small an attendance at the regular worship 
as now. And, judging from all sources of informa- 
tion obtainable or accessible, the attendance upon 
the public worship of the Church is by older people 
in the main, and comparatively few children and 
young people attend with regularity. Further, there 
are in later years comparatively few non-Christian 
people who are regular attendants of the Church 
services. The general complaint everywhere is on 
these particular points. These very things which the 
Sunday-school is instituted to do and the very things 
106 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

that its friends are putting their life-work into it to 
accomplish. On the other hand, there has never been 
so large an enrollment and attendance in the Sunday- 
schools as during the past decade. In 1820 there 
was an enrollment of 1.8% of the population of the 
country in the Sunday-schools. In 1905 there was 
14.7% of the population enrolled. Again, John 
Wanamaker is authority for the statement that only 
one in fifteen adult Church members are in the 
Sunday-school, yet the enrollment in the Sunday- 
schools of the country is approximately the same as 
the enrollment of the Churches to which they belong. 
There are, then, approximately, after taking out the 
children who belong to the Church, a majority at 
least, almost certainly a large majority of the 11,- 
251,000 pupils in the Sunday-school who are not 
Church members. A conservative estimate would 
be at least 6,000,000 of non-church members are 
in the Sunday-schools. The complaint is that very 
few non-church members are in the public services. 
And the statistics of 1905 indicate that in three 
years, out of an enrollment of at least 6,000,000 non- 
church members in the Sunday-school, most of them 
children of the most impressible age, during the 
time when the vast majority of people become Chris- 
tians if they ever become Christians, only 217,000 
107 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

united with the Churches with which these Sunday- 
schools are connected, or approximately six out of 
five hundred. 

Now, if the ends were being reached, the at- 
tendance of non- Christians, especially of children 
and youth, would increase in the Church services 
in proportion to the growth of the Sunday-school, 
and the increase in membership, especially from the 
ranks of the young, would be in like proportion. 
Whereas the facts are, that in the Church at large 
the results are in adverse proportion. And the facts 
are, that too often devoted people in the most noble 
type of service possible to render, that of Sunday- 
school work, are by misdirected energies making their 
work to accomplish that which they do not want it 
to accomplish. The facts at large warrant the ne- 
cessity of great care lest the Sunday-school, insti- 
tuted and sustained for the purpose of supplement- 
ing the work of the Church and being a feeder for 
the Church and a contributor to the Church and 
in every way an aid to the Church, shall not become 
instead a crushing competitor of the Church, while 
the most devoted members of the Church contribute 
unwittingly to this end. 

It is to be feared, in the presence of undisputed 
and alarming facts, that too often the Sunday-school 
108 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

is substituted for the Church service; that children 
are sent to Sunday-school and at its close go home, 
thus forming week after week with increasing firm- 
ness the habit of not going to Church instead of 
the habit of Church attendance, when they become 
older even taking from the Sunday-school library 
books to be read during the hour of Church services, 
and when they go out of the Sunday-school are 
graduated, not into the Church, but onto the streets 
and into the parks on Sunday, and places of pleasure 
if not of sin during the week. 

The morning Sunday-school hour is especially 
to be guarded else these results accrue. 

Again, the wrong use of the Sunday-school be- 
comes adverse to the true objects of the Sunday-school 
work when it is made a substitute for the religious 
instruction of the home and family religion. It 
is impossible to overestimate the importance of the 
educational element in family life. Especially do 
social and religious education get their impress and 
emphasis here. 

There are two methods of home teaching, namely, 
example and definite instruction. And three ele- 
ments leave their impress, namely, heredity, environ- 
ment, and personality. And the latter has by far 
the greatest power. Now, in matters of religion, as 
109 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

Bushnell says, "the ideal way is for a child to grow 
up a Christian and never know himself to be other- 
wise." Or, as Moody says, "a child may be con- 
verted so young that he may not know that he was 
converted." Nothing can take the place of religious 
instruction in the home. The essentials of true re- 
ligion may be loved into the child spirit before in- 
tellectual instruction can take definite form. Unless 
a child gets some Biblical and religious training 
by the environment and personality in the family, 
both by example and definite teaching, there is little 
hope that he will ever become permanently con- 
verted or that much can be done with him in a re- 
ligious way. And it is asking too much that a Sun- 
day-school teacher, in a half-hour on Sunday, shall 
do what ought to be done in the family seven days 
of the week and in some degree every hour of the 
day. 

Davenport, who is an expert in evangelical mat- 
ters, in his book, "A Study of Kevivals," says, "A 
sound family religion furnishes the only true basis 
for a healthy evangelism/' 

Jerry McCauley, the slum worker in New York 

for so many years, and whose opinion in such a 

case would be of great value, says : "Far be it from 

me to limit the grace of God. But I have never 

110 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION". 

known a man to be permanently reclaimed who did 
not have a good mother." 

The child's first and most lasting teacher is its 
first and most intense lover. And that is usually 
its mother. Jesus gave large honor to the family. 
He performed His first miracle at a wedding feast. 
He Himself was an obedient Child in His mother's 
home. He doubtless received that wonderful knowl- 
edge which caused His hearers to exclaim, "How 
knoweth this Man letters, having never learned?" 
from the quiet and painstaking instruction of His 
peasant mother. 

The correct and helpful motto, then, should be 
in this work of Bible instruction, A Whole Church 
in the Sunday-school and the Whole Sunday- 
school in the Church. And we should seek the 
former that the latter may prevail. Only by the 
Church being in vital touch with the Sunday-school 
can the best results be obtained in bringing the whole 
Sunday-school into the Church. 

With the ease with which a child may be in- 
fluenced for good, especially if that child comes from 
a Christian home, the cases where a child grows up 
from childhood to youth in the Sunday-school ought 
to be very rare when those young people do not be- 
come Christians and regular attendants at the public 
111 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

services of the Church. Instead of six in five hun- 
dred, there should be at least four hundred out of 
five hundred. And if the whole Church were in the 
Sunday-school and then the whole Sunday-school in 
the Church, such results might accrue. If the Sun- 
day-schools had the hearty support of all the Church 
members, and in turn the children, and young people 
of the Sunday-schools were in the Church services, 
there would be within a very short time such a rise 
in the tide of spiritual things as the most sanguine 
could not dream of. 

The Importance of the Whole Church in the 
Sunday-school. 

Because the Sunday-school is the teaching place 
for the most valuable information possible to obtain, 
and which can not be obtained elsewhere. It is not 
in the public schools ; it is not in the colleges ; preach- 
ing is another function entirely than to give detailed 
information regarding Biblical matters; the family 
has its exceedingly important function, but it is not 
that of the Bible school. For the adult people as 
well as the children. 

The presence of all Christian people in the Sun- 
day-school should be encouraged because of the ex- 
ample it gives and the influence it wields in secur- 
112 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

ing and holding the attendance of non-Christian 
people. 

I know there are objections that urge themselves, 
and I am aware of how busy a time claims our at- 
tention. I know the temptations to move over lines 
of least resistance. But the extreme importance of 
these matters makes me bold to plead for these con- 
siderations, and there must be some things said and 
said repeatedly and earnestly at these points, for 
people do not consider always until their attention 
is called to these matters. 

Many people say, "I am so tired when Sunday 
morning comes that I do not get up in time for 
Sunday-school." Now, I have no doubt of the abso- 
lute truthfulness of that statement, as it actually is 
the case of very many. But why make Sunday 
morning an exception ? "Why not arise later Monday 
morning, or say make it Thursday ? "Why I must go 
to work. I must be in the store or in the office 
or in the factory." Well, why in the office or the 
store or the factory any more on Monday than in the 
Church on Sunday ? There is but one honest answer : 
we regard the work on Monday of more importance 
than we do the work on Sunday. Not only so, but too 
often we in the final analysis regard the Sunday 
work as of very little importance. But is not Sunday 
8 113 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

made for a day of rest? Not in the sense of in- 
activity. Eest is not inaction; it is change of occu- 
pation. And God has so arranged the human system, 
body, mind, and soul, in their relations to each other 
that the one day in seven, when spent in divine wor- 
ship and the consideration of moral and spiritual 
things, the whole man is rested and recuperated for 
the trials and perplexities and the physical strain 
of the week that is to come. To break the habits 
of the regular hour of rising, the regular time of 
meals, and to spend the day in inaction is not the 
physical demands, and he who does so will not do 
his best work on Monday. The rule of law on that 
point is not, "They that rise an hour or two later 
on Sunday, and take a walk in the park in the after- 
noon, and go to bed early Sunday night shall be re- 
cuperated for the work of the week;" but there is 
most excellent authority, which has been over and 
over again demonstrated by experience, that "They 
that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, 
they shall mount upon wings as eagles, they shall 
run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." 
The man who rises at the same hour on Sunday 
that he does at other times; takes his breakfast at 
the usual hour; then takes his children, if he be 
fortunate enough to have them, or if not, to go with 
114 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

his wife, or alone, if he have no home ties, to the 
Sunday-school; attends divine service; possibly does 
some mission work or has a "sing" with his family 
in the afternoon; goes to Church again at night, 
and retires at the usual hour — he is the man who 
goes to his work on Monday recuperated. 

And it would be far from me to urge additional 
burdens to the already burdened, but the man who 
is busiest doing good on Sunday is the mightiest man 
on Monday in every way. And instead of there be- 
ing one in fifteen adult Church members in the 
Sunday-school, there should be at least ten out of 
fifteen. I know there are real hindrances. Ideals 
can not be reached. That is no reason why they 
should not be striven for. 

This Should Be that the Other Ideal May 
Be Achieved or Approached, and the whole Sun- 
day-school should be in the Church service. From 
Sunday-school superintendent to the children in the 
infant class, all should be in the morning service, 
and as soon as children are old enough to and do 
remain up until nine o'clock when at home, they 
should attend the Sunday night service, always ac- 
companied by their parents, or, when one must re- 
main at home with younger children, by either the 
father or mother. But children get tired being in 
115 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

Sunday-school and then in Church. Yes, and I know 
that the morning Sunday-school adds to that peril. 
But it is so important that they attend the services 
that great peril threatens if they do not. When are 
they to form the habits of Church attendance if 
not when they are forming their other habits of life ? 

I have no doubt that children get tired going 
to Sunday-school and then to Church service, and 
I have no doubt but that older people do the same. 
They get tired on Monday in school, ' and they get 
tired working their algebra and their grammar and 
their arithmetic. They get tired practicing music 
and doing errands. But is it so perilous for a child 
to get tired? Is weariness to old or young a deadly 
experience ? 

Why are two or three hours on Sunday longer than 
two or three hours on Monday? We have a com- 
pulsory educational law in Ohio, and it is a good 
one. When the truant officer comes for Johnny, you 
do not say: He gets so tired going to school; it is 
so long from eight-thirty to eleven-thirty, and then 
again in the afternoon, and for five days in the week ; 
I am afraid if I make him go to school when he 
would rather go fishing, that when he gets to be a 
man he will hate books so I can not get him in sight 
of a library, and he will like to fish so well I can 
116 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

not get him past a fish pond. Why one principle on 
Sunday and another on Monday? One principle in 
secular education and another in religious education? 
But, you say, I knew a man once- who said that his 
father made him go to Church and Sunday-school 
so much when he was a boy that when he got to be 
a man he hated Church and Sunday-school, and never 
wanted to see a Bible again. Well, I knew a man 
once whose father sent him to school at great sacri- 
fice. Who spent a thousand dollars a year for five 
years on his education in college. He lied and stole 
his way through and barely made his grades, and 
made the school a lot of trouble. The day he gradu- 
ated he went to a neighboring town and was brought 
home drunk. He declared he would never step in- 
side of a schoolroom again, and said he never wanted 
to see another book. Now, that was not because his 
father sent him to school, but in spite of the fact 
that his father made him go to school. It was not 
the fault of the college, but in spite of the college. 
It was because he was a miserable, profligate igno- 
ramus by choice. He preferred it. He had tastes 
for that and not for the other, and could not be 
educated in refinements and morals. Now, possibly 
some man may think that is why he does not like 
Church and the Bible; but no boy was ever made 
117 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

worse by being placed under good influences, even 
though it was irksome for a time. And if any man 
ever became a bad man when he was in a good home 
and when he was sent to Church and Sunday-school 
during his childhood and youth, it was not because 
he was made to undergo too many good influences, 
but it was in spite of those good influences. The 
case has been wrongly diagnosed, and the strong 
probability is that, as bad as he is and as full of 
doubts, he is better than he would have been without 
the influences of the Church. 

The child is susceptible to impressions and he 
is receiving impressions. He may sit in the pew 
and sleep half the time. Some grown folks do. But 
still impressions are being made. The little fellow 
of seven may not remember all that he hears at 
Church. Neither does the man of fifty. You may 
remember more of the sermon to-morrow than the 
seven-year-old, but he will remember more of it 
twenty years from now than you will. He is getting 
an impression that he does not fully understand now, 
but he will ten years from now. He is getting in- 
spirations and ideals and lofty determinations. I 
had one of the most beautiful compliments I have 
had since being here from a little fellow no more 
than seven years old a few weeks ago. He came 
118 



RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 

to me with his eyes aglow and said, in a half-excited 
way, "When I am a man I am going to be a preacher 
like you." Now, his judgment may be wrong, and 
if he is a preacher he had better take some one else 
as his ideal, yet I can not escape the responsibility 
of the impression made. It is better that children 
get their ideals impressed by personality from the 
minister, the choir singer, and the social greeting in 
the church foyer than elsewhere. You can not take 
children to Church too young after they are old 
enough to listen to any portion of the service. And 
every child of five years and more should be in 
the family pew on Sunday morning. 

A whole Church in the Sunday-school and the 
whole Sunday-school in the Church. The former that 
the latter may ultimately prevail, with careful guard- 
ing lest the emphasis be so placed on the Sunday- 
school work that it defeats its own purposes and dis- 
sipates the energies of its most devoted workers, and 
makes them even undo what they are so diligently 
attempting to do. 



119 



Take Courage from Grod. 

SENTENCE PRAYER. 

O God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, grant to each 
of us and to each of those for whom our hearts appeal 
in prayer, the sweet and powerful blessings of Fatherly 
love and care, redeeming and saving grace, unerring 
guidance and comfort to the fullness of our need. Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON. 

Text, Luke 5: 4, "Launch out into the deep." As a 
great ship is evidently made to sail the vast ocean in 
storm or calm, so, O man, thy mighty soul, with its 
marvels of memory, reason, judgment, will, imagination, 
and faith, is evidently intended for something more 
sublime and worthy than the claims of this brief, un- 
certain, and transitory life. "Launch out into the deep." 
Undertake great things for God and in His name; 
for Him, then, you may expect great things. 



The True Minister's Attitude to- 
ward the New Theology. 

When commingled fact and fancy are threshed 
and winnowed by human thought, there is sure to 
be some wheat with the chaff and some chaff with 
the wheat. While the Word of God is true and con- 
tains an inerrant record of truth on all the questions 
of its deliverance, all human interpretations of the 
Word of God are not true, and all statements of creed 
are by no means inerrant. The Word of God is 
inspired, but no human interpretation of it is in- 
spired. Language is the vehicle of thought. It may 
be a chariot of beauty or a rugged cart of extreme 
plainness. The thought of the Bible is the inerrant 
messenger of inspiration. And "Holy men of God 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 

"And every Scripture inspired of God is also 
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for 
instruction which is in righteousness; that the man 
of God may be complete, furnished completely unto 
every good work." But no amanuensis, no typesetter, 
nor proof-reader has been inspired to preserve a cor- 
123 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

rect record, even to the dotting of an "i" or the cross- 
ing of a "t." 

As no human theology can claim unmixed truth, 
and no one can be absolutely certain that possible 
inaccuracies of minor character may not have crept 
into the now accepted text of Scripture so that it 
can not be absolutely certain that portions of the 
canon of Scripture are Scriptures given by inspiration 
of God, there should be on the part of all, and there 
will be on the part of all who are intelligently Christ- 
like, the tenderest charity and broadest tolerance for 
the honest opinions and interpretative creeds of oth- 
ers. It is as true as truth itself that the Bible will 
abide forever. And the Church, founded upon the 
immutable rock of a Divine Christ revealed in the 
Bible, is immortal, and "the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it." But no such assurance attaches 
to any system of theological interpretation, or to 
the ecclesiastical jurisprudence of any particular 
branch of the Church, because to a greater or less 
degree all theological systems and ecclesiastical 
methods are human and have inherently the condi- 
tions of possible failure. There is only one hope for 
the perpetuity of any system, and that is the truth 
which it contains. Truth is eternal. Error, while 
often tenacious, wily, mighty, iconoclastic, often dis- 
124 



THE NEW THEOLOGY. 

playing great longevity and great activity, yet has 
within it the constituent elements of dissolution, for 
it has received its deathblow at the hands of the 
truth. Bryant uttered a pungent fact when in his 
immortal poem he said: 

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; 

The eternal years of God are hers; 
While error, wounded, writhes in pain, 

And dies amidst his worshipers. 

The awakened human mind is ever engaged in 
a hungry and tireless pursuit of truth, with the per- 
sistency with which hungry vitals long for bread. 
And when overtaken or applied, truth fits the 
human soul as light suits the eye, or flowers or music 
delight the sesthetical taste. Faith must have its 
foundation on truth. And saving faith must be 
grounded in "the Truth" who is a living, personal, 
omnipotent immortality. And, as Lord Bacon has 
so forcefully said, "No pleasure is comparable to 
the standing upon the vantage ground of truth." 
There is very likely, then, in the new theologies some 
wheat with the chaff of error. And in our creeds, 
in which we find on closest tests there is so much 
of helpful, saving truth, there is some chaff with the 
wheat. Let us welcome truth wherever we find it, 
and let us not hold to the chaff of error which the 
125 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

winds of friendly and devout criticism would sepa- 
rate from our wheat of truth. What is the new 
theology upon which my theme presumes that the 
minister must assume and maintain some attitude? 
I assume that only a mere outline of it will be neces- 
sary in this brief paper, perhaps not even that. I 
can give no clearer and more comprehensive epitome 
of the system than the statement which Dr. Arthur 
T. Pierson denominates "The Five Points of the New 
Theology :" 

1. The universal Fatherhood of God and conse- 
quently the brotherhood of man, independent of re- 
demption in Christ. 

2. Christ, the perfection of humanity, a martyr 
to truth, and an example for imitation, but not a 
vicarious Savior. 

3. Sin, a misfortune and a disease, possibly a 
necessity to the attaining of perfection: a fall for- 
ward. 

4. Salvation by character, and universal destiny 
an evolution toward perfection here and hereafter. 

5. The Bible, the best of books, inspired, but not 
infallible or inerrant, dependent for authority upon 
the attestation of conscience. 

That there is some truth in the system no one 
who believes in the Christian religion will deny. 
126 



THE NEW THEOLOGY. 

That there is much and perhaps much more error 
than truth, no orthodox believer will doubt. That 
there are some allegations, stated or implied, which 
may be truth or may be error, or a mixture of both, 
is very likely the fact. What shall then be the atti- 
tude of the minister toward these various portions of 
the system? For a minister must be discriminating. 
He must not lump together the good and the bad, 
and condemn or accept both. 

The attitude of the minister toward the truth of 
the new theology, when he has mentally dissected 
it and proven it to be truth according to the Scrip- 
tures, and where experience and logical conclusions 
are in evidence, by these valuable witnesses also, 
should be that of frank and hearty acceptance of it, 
as he would accept truth found anywhere. As to 
the errors, when he has satisfied his mind that they 
are such by competent testimony of the Word, ex- 
perience, and logical conclusion, then let him stand 
with firm attitude against them. Let him denounce 
them on all proper occasions and in all proper man- 
ners ; and not merely by relegating them as unworthy 
of his notice. And yet the errors themselves had 
better not be mentioned and thus advertised. Error 
should be overthrown, not by harsh and unlogical if 
not illogical stroke, but by the only natural, logical, 
127 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

right, and successful method of destroying error, 
namely, by applying the God-ordained antidote of 
truth. God has a power for the destruction of every 
evil in every realm. It is said that there is never 
found a thistle but a dock is growing near by, and the 
dock is a cooling antidote for the thistle's sting. If 
discovered and applied intelligently, there is an anti- 
dote for every evil, a supply for every need. The fam- 
ishing lungs are fed by fresh air; the thirsty vitals 
are revived by water; and neither air nor water is 
a substitute for the other. 

Light is the natural destroyer of darkness, and 
there is no other element, however powerful, which 
can accomplish that result or even approach it. Wind 
and wave are mighty, and though they ply their 
powers with well-nigh resistless force on rock and 
forest, yet when darkness enshrouds the earth with 
impenetrable gloom, their might lies absolutely im- 
potent. But when the sun's effulgent rays flash their 
myriad golden spears, the armies of the night flee 
in swift, ignoble, and irretrievable retreat. 

In the moral world there is one and only one 
antidotical iconoclast of vice. It is virtue. No vice 
can stand against the army of virtuous deeds bear- 
ing the ermine banner of spotless character. So 
there is just one destroyer of error. It is truth. 
128 



THE NEW THEOLOGY. 

We are to destroy the errors of the new theology 
as we would destroy any errors. Not by bitter and 
scathing attack, but by clear preaching of the doc- 
trinal truths set opposite the errors. 

We have heard it said so often, that although it is 
without reason, I fear some are tempted to believe it 
implicitly, that the age of doctrinal preaching is past ; 
that this age does not want doctrine ; that the day of 
theology is gone, and that we are in an age when 
sociology is to have the emphasis. Some do not want 
some types of doctrine, and an inspection of each 
particular case would disclose without doubt an ob- 
vious reason. But there never was a time when the 
doctrines of the Bible were more needed or more 
wanted than they are to-day. Not necessarily old 
doctrines in old forms, but true doctrines, whether 
old or new, in most progressive form and method of 
expression. Religious doctrine should be held and 
taught, not because it is old or because it is new, 
but because it is true. Change is not always progress, 
nor is stability always stultification, much less retro- 
gression. Theology is a progressive science, and we 
should ever be reaching forth to those things which 
are before. Progress should be the watchword, yet 
the best type of progress is that which conserves what 
is true in the old, adds the new that is true. There 
9 129 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

never was a larger necessity in the hearts and lives 
of individuals or in the requirements of social neces- 
sities for the essential doctrines of the Word of God 
than in this remarkable age in which we live. The 
preaching of doctrine is needed for instruction of 
our busy people who have not the time, and many 
of them have not the desire, to search and to make 
research for themselves. They are needed for the 
destruction of the theological and ecclesiastical errors 
which hover over a Church, doctrinally weak, like 
hungry cormorants above flocks of enfeebled lambs 
chilled by the winds of doubt. As good shepherds, 
; ministers have no right to neglect to slay these 
monster errors, called by whatever name, with the 
unerring shafts of truth. 

To preach the great doctrines of the "Word so as 
to be attractive and in a manner that will command 
the attention of the people in this restless age is no 
easy task. These great truths lie deep in the rugged 
mountains of revelation, and there is just one way 
of getting out these golden and enduring facts. That 
is, with all obtainable helps, to dig for them per- 
sistently, laboriously, and constantly. But if we 
are to assume the proper attitude toward any errors, 
and if we are to fill our places in the pulpits of 
this age, we must, first of all — whatever minor 
130 



THE NEW THEOLOGY. 

things may or may not be done — be preachers of 
the Word of God. To the utmost of our ability, 
with all the force of logic, beauty of diction, and 
unction of the Spirit possible, we must declare as 
clear as the clarion notes of a silver bell the great 
fundamental doctrines of the Word of God. Never 
was there more hunger of soul for the teachings of 
the Church on such great themes as the Trinity in 
Unity, the Personality and Deity of the Holy Spirit, 
the Divinity of Christ, the resurrection from the 
dead, justification, regeneration, heart-purity, the 
witness of the Spirit, the enormity of sin, the in- 
carnation of God in Christ, the atonement in all 
its phases, the immortality of the soul, future re- 
wards and punishments, and other great themes that 
are in men's minds to-day. And, when presented 
in a garb which is recognizable by the age, there 
are no themes more attractive. They must, however, 
be preached without antique cant, and with a method 
of thought illustration and verbiage as fresh as a 
morning paper. Such preaching by ever so plain a 
preacher will drive the vultures of error into hiding, 
and false theories will melt away like frost before the 
rays of the May-day sun. 

As to the unsettled questions of the new theology, 
and to my mind there are some such, the minister 
131 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

should, in his private thought, in his study with his 
books and his God, maintain an attitude of unbiased 
and unprejudiced inquiry and investigation for truth. 
In his pulpit, on these questions, until he has be- 
come thoroughly convinced in his own mind so that 
he is able to give a clear reason for the hope that 
is within him, let him maintain a profound silence. 
With a firmness and completeness which the value 
of immortal souls and their destiny would dictate, let 
no minister of Jesus Christ, who is the Truth as 
well as the Way and the Life, presume to come into 
the sacred desk with his doubts and uncertainties. 
Only his mature conclusions upon which he holds 
the clearest convictions have a rightful place in the 
humblest pulpit. If it is said that some men can 
not arrive at definite conclusions, that they are 
so constituted they can never be quite free from 
doubt upon any subject, then let them like honest 
men decline to enter the ministry of the Word, or 
if they are in such position, immediately forsake the 
sacred calling. There is no place in the pulpits of 
the Church for men who can not reach definite con- 
clusions. All the minister's debates with himself 
should be conducted in the strict privacy of his own 
workshop, with a most careful, studious, unpreju- 
diced, prayerful search for the truth. 
132 



THE NEW THEOLOGY. 

His public attitude toward the new theology 
should be one of kind toleration to the system as a 
whole, the acceptance of such truth as it manifestly 
contains, and the destruction as far as possible of 
its errors by clear, forceful presentation of truths that 
oppose them. 



133 



The Eternal Father Kevealed in Christ. 

CHRISTMAS PRAYER. 

O Lord, we praise Thee, we honor Thee, we glorify 
Thee, we worship Thee, for the unspeakable gift of Thy 
Son, our Savior; for the light, joy, peace, and love which 
the baby fingers have tenderly placed in our hearts, 
and for the light which the halo about the brow of the 
Christ-child has given to our mystified spirits. May this 
Christmas time bring to us a broader charity, deeper 
humility, and a more exalted faith in Thee! Thus may 
we learn well the sweet and potent lessons that make 
for greatest and eternal success. And unto Thee, O 
Holy Father, through Thy merits, O Glorious Son, and 
by Thy aid, O Holy Spirit, we will unite in highest 
praise and humbest devotion, both now and forever. 
Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON FOR CHRISTMAS TIME. 

Text, John 14: 9, "He that hath seen Me hath seen 
the Father." The incarnation of God in Christ, in which 
we rejoice during this glad Christmas time, reveals to 
us the loving Fatherhood of God. There is no way we 
can tell from nature's acts whether God loves or hates 
us. Sometimes we think that He loves us. When 
nature smiles and sings, when she whispers and caresses 
us in gentle winds and in gorgeous beauty. But when 
nature sighs, frowns, moans, blusters, bellows, and roars 
in wrath; when it stamps and crushes and tortures us 
in storm and flame and earthquake shock, we are un- 
able to interpret God's feelings toward us. But when 
we see Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, coming from 
heavenly bliss to earthly self-sacrifice, with the avowed 
purpose "to seek and save that which was lost," we 
know what God thinks of us, and infinite love and 
mercy radiate from His life, from His manger-cradle to 
His rugged cross. 

135 



The Birthday of the King. 

Text, Matt. 2:2: "Where is He that is born King 
of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East 
and are come to worship Him." 

The theme suggested by our text is the only 
really appropriate subject of thought for Christen- 
dom to-day, the Sunday nearest the day that custom 
has set apart in which to remember the coming 
of the Redeemer of mankind. This is not a season 
of sadness but of gladness, for it calls our attention 
to the source of all true joy. 

The occasion is historic, but the scenes are com- 
monplace, even meager, from every earthly viewpoint. 
The village of Bethlehem was obscure, the Palestine 
country was barren and for the most part unfruit- 
ful, the race from which the Christ-child sprang was 
being assembled to surrender its authority of govern- 
ment. 

An ancient prophecy has said, "The scepter shall 
not depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from be- 
137 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

tween his feet until Shiloh come." When the proph- 
ecy was uttered Judah had no scepter. From every 
indication of law and custom there was no prospect 
that his tribe would have a scepter. The eldest of 
the family inherited all family rights to rulership 
in Israel. Judah was not the eldest son. But later 
Judah's tribe had a scepter of power. It is about 
to be taken from his people by the Eoman emperor. 
The edict has gone forth from Augustus that on a 
certain day all the people of Judea shall assemble 
in their respective towns and villages to enroll for 
taxation by the Eoman crown. This day of home- 
coming is to mark the departing of the scepter from 
Judah. If the Messiah does not come to-day the 
prophecy has failed. This and other indications di- 
rect the attention of wise men to Bethlehem, the city 
of David, where the prophecies declare that Christ 
shall be born. Eor the unwilling home-coming every 
shelter is made ready for the entertainment of the 
guests. Even the stables are emptied of their usual 
occupants and the stalls are garnished and made 
ready as guest chambers. Joseph and Mary had come 
with others. They were assigned to a stall in a rock- 
hewn stable, and thus sheltered from the chill winds 
of the night. Toward the little town of Bethlehem 
the eyes of angels and wise men look that wonderful 
138 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE KING. 

night. Will the prophecy fail? Before the dawn 
of the day when Rome formally takes the scepter 
from the hands of Judah's tribe forever, will Shiloli 
come? 

The midnight approaches. Stillness reigns, 
broken only by the neighing of horses, the braying 
of the beasts of bnrden, the barking of the dogs, and 
the occasional scream of a jackal or mountain lion. 

The shepherds sleeping beneath their goat-skin 
coverings were aronsed from their slumbers by the 
barking of the dogs, and a strange sight met. their 
view. A sight which startled them and rilled them 
with great fear. A light of peculiar brightness 
shimmered through the valleys and gilded the snow- 
tipped mountain in the distance. Angels appeared, 
clothed in radiance, and soothed the shepherds' fear 
by announcing to them that there was born in the 
city of David a Savior who was Christ the Lord. 
And immediately they saw with the angel a multi- 
tude of the heavenly host singing and praising God, 
saying, "Glory to God in the highest and on earth 
peace and good-will toward men." While in the 
manger-cradle Mary had lain her First-born, above 
whose radiant brow a star of peculiar brightness 
shone, and the wise men, guided by the star, were 
led to where the young Child was, and wondering 
139 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

that He came in the midst of such plain surround- 
ings, were offering their gifts of gold and frankin- 
cense and myrrh, in token of their faith that He, 
the Desire of all nations, had come. Lo ! nature and 
the supernatural unite in doing honor to the phe- 
nomenal Stranger. Shepherds and philosophers 
unite in worshiping at the new-made shrine in Beth- 
lehem's manger. 

That night the King was born. Not a king, 
but the King — "King of kings and Lord of lords." 
No joy-bells rang on earth, no bonfires blazed from 
vale and hill, no soldier pageantry guarded the path 
of His approach, no rich-garbed heralds announced 
His advent, and He was lifted into no throne of 
gold and ivory amidst shouts of adoring acclaim. 
But never did potentate breathe the air of earth to 
order such destinies before. Never were such prin- 
ciples involved as lay dormant in that baby brain, 
such purposes and motives as were in the heart be- 
neath that baby breast. Those infant fingers were 
to "lift empires from their hinges," they were to turn 
the tides of the centuries into utterly new channels. 

Some people gain distinction by the famous places 

which gave them birth. Some are eminent because 

of noble and worthy ancestry. This infant King 

gives immortal fame to His peasant mother, and 

140 



THE BIKTHDAY OF THE KING. 

places as a most distinguished and memorable place 
on the map of the civilized world in all time the 
obscure village of Bethlehem. No place so well 
known to-day, no spot with so many and tender 
memories to Christendom as the birthplace of The 
King. No day so widely observed as the day which 
custom marks in memory of His advent. No name 
is so widely known or so revered as the name of 
Jesus, Savior. Who is this whom the world honors 
to-day ? He had no wealth, no armed forces to forge 
His way to eminence for Him. Who is He? How 
has He attained such distinction and commanded 
such devotion? Evidently He was God manifest in 
the flesh. His miraculous birth, His wonderful life 
and deeds, His shameful, ignominious death, and 
His glorious resurrection, with their inclusive and 
accompanying phenomena, attest His claim to being 
the Son of God, to whom all power is given in heaven 
and in earth. He said, "before Abraham was I am." 
Note the verbiage. Not "I was," but "I am." The 
eternal, changeless Omnipresence. The same yester- 
day, to-day, and forever. He, the eternal God, is 
incarnate in the Babe in Bethlehem, in the Boy in 
the temple, in the Man of Galilee. 

Not that God is specially confined in limited 
flesh, or that He is specially inclosed in a limited 
141 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

physical organism. Even humanity is not confined 
in a human body, or inclosed within the limits of 
physical organism. You can think beyond your pow- 
ers of vision, reason farther than your hands can 
reach, imagine farther than your ears can hear, and 
hope far more than your muscular powers could lift. 
Man is larger, greater, essentially different from his 
physical organism. The real man is not confined in 
the body. When we say that God is incarnate in the 
person of Jesus, we do not mean if we speak intelli- 
gently that He is confined within human limitations. 
What we mean is, that God chose to manifest Him- 
self through the person of Jesus to enter into human 
experiences, to meet human temptations, to render 
human service, and to assume both disciplinary and 
expiatory sufferings. The disciplinary that He might 
be "made perfect (in human nature) through suf- 
fering/' the expiatory that He might purchase 
"eternal redemption for us." 

But wonder of wonders ! why should He come 
to earth, a little spot in His great universe; take 
upon Him our flesh, be buffeted and beaten, hungry 
and sorrowful, and finally die the most painful and 
shameful death? Doubtless we can never know the 
deep motives which prompted His coming. It is 
quite enough that we know that "He came to seek 
142 



THE BIETHDAY OF THE KING. 

and to save that which was lost/' and to "destroy 
the works of the devil." But we are also assured 
of this, for God makes no mistakes, that Jesus did 
not come to correct a blunder. The low idea that 
God saw that He had made a mistake in creating 
man with powers to sin, and then forced His Son 
into the world to correct the mistake by suffering 
infinitely to atone for man, is a revolting, repulsive, 
and vicious interpretation of truly orthodox teaching. 
The coming of the King was a part of the divine 
plan. He was foreordained from the foundation of 
the world to take His part in the great and fathom- 
less plan of salvation so that man might be a heavenly 
character by his own choice, a victor over sin and 
sorrow and suffering, and this does no violence to 
the free-will of man in the image of God for Christ 
freely chose in the beginning to assume the part of 
Eedeemer. To accomplish this a redemption from 
sin was necessary should man fall. For natural law 
knows no repeal, it knows no mercy, it knows no 
pardon, and it makes no allowance for ignorance of 
the law. There must be, then, in harmony with 
justice and mercy in a world where men have free 
choice yet have limited intelligence and evil tempta- 
tions, a supernatural law, a law of grace, making 
possible the forgiveness of sins on conditions that will 
143 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

do no injustice to the innocent and the obedient. 
Christ came to introduce this law of grace and 
mercy, to leave every man without excuse for fail- 
ing to make the port of heavenly bliss by his own 
choice, and in which his own efforts may have a large 
and important place. 

In accomplishing the great purposes of Christ's 
advent and the incarnation of God in Him, some 
elements are essential, as walls and foundations and 
roof and gables are essential to a building. 

He gave to the world a correct ideal, both of 
principle and method. Not that any of us can or 
should do what Jesus did. Or that we should inquire 
as a basis of our conduct "what would Jesus do?" 
Only divine knowledge can determine what Jesus 
would do under the conditions where knowledge is 
sought and desired. What Jesus should do, or even 
what you should do, is not a detailed exhibit of what 
any other should do. The great and determining 
question regarding conduct should be, "What would 
Jesus have me do?" Not what is Jesus, but what 
would He have me to be ? He gave the world a fault- 
less ideal, both of principle and method, but not in 
detail. There is left for each individual the widest 
liberty of personality and opportunity. A correct 
ideal the world never had before. 
144 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE KING. 

Men of genius there had been, and have been 
since. In music, Mozart, Handel, and Wagner have 
charmed the world with melody. In statecraft, 
Moses, Julius Caesar, and Gladstone have indicated 
to the world what genius in statesmanship can do. 
In the leadership of men in the face of danger 
Alexander and Napoleon and Grant have shown to 
the world forever the startling genius of war and 
generalship. But none of these were ideal men. 

Manhood in its essentials is strength and beauty 
in full-orbed power in all physical, intellectual, aes- 
thetical, and moral elements. And these elements 
in operation according to principles which guaran- 
tee the rights of all, the weak as well as the 
strong. This the world with all its wisdom had not 
learned before the coming of The King. Might made 
right. The ideal for which the world was panting 
had never appeared. Moses was a master statesman, 
but he could not control himself; he committed mur- 
der. Cato was a great intellect, but he committed 
suicide. Plato was a mighty philosopher, but he 
justified and advocated drunkenness. 

But here in the manger-cradle is a King greater 

than Julius Csesar, a Commander who could call 

twelve legions of angels to His defense, an Executive 

into whose hands all power is given in heaven and 

10 145 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

in earth, who presided when the morning stars sang 
together for joy, and One of whom Pilate spoke more 
wisely than he knew when he said, "Behold the Man." 
And after more than nineteen hundred years of 
critical research the verdict of Pilate is the verdict 
of the world, "I find no fault in Him at all." In 
Him is the ideal of the principles of human char- 
acter. And when the world beholds, it admires. 
When He is lifted up, He draws all men unto Him. 

However, to indorse and admire Christ as the 
faultless Ideal is not sufficient to insure the salva- 
tion which He came to accomplish in humanity. 
The indorsement of right, though necessary, is not 
enough to set right the motives of the soul. 

One may acknowledge with full consent of mind 
the miraculous wonders of Christ's birth and life, 
and yet not believe Him to be able to save, much less 
to have received the accomplishment of that salvation. 
His birth was a miracle, His life was a marvel, His 
death a pathetic shame. But all this may be truth- 
fully said of others. "The birth of Isaac was a mir- 
acle. The life of Elijah was a marvel. The death of 
Stephen was a pathetic shame." We may go farther 
and hold correct ideas of the Christ, and yet remain 
in the "gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity." 
Pontius Pilate had a correct view of Jesus. He said, 
146 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE KING. 

"I find no fault in Him at all," but it did not 
prevent him from delivering Him to be crucified to 
further his own political interests; his intellectual 
belief did not change the motive of his action. Judas 
had a correct idea of Jesus; he was with Him, 
knew the spotlessness of His manhood, and after he 
had sold Him into the hands of His enemies, came 
and brought the price back, saying, "I have sinned 
in that I have betrayed innocent blood," but the 
motive of the inner life of Judas was not set right, 
for he went out and hanged himself. The centurion 
at the cross had a broad and correct intellectual view 
of the Christ. He said, "Surely this Man was the 
Son of God." Even the modern infidel, Thomas 
Payne, did not have an entirely wrong intellectual 
view of Jesus and His ethical teachings, for he said, 
"The ethical principles of the Sermon on the Mount 
will never be improved upon." To intellectually 
approve the Christ is not necessarily to receive His 
atoning benefits. Correct views are necessary, but not 
enough. To receive Him into the heart — the faith, 
the love, the deep-seated affections — this unites the 
natural powers of the believer with the supernatural 
powers of the Savior, and the Christly motive is 
born into the soul. And with this Christlif e comes the 
elements of sublimest happiness. These elements the 
147 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

world never knew until it learned them of the great 
Teacher of Galilee. 

The essence, not only of the world's supply of 
needed aid, but of true happiness, lies not in self, 
but in service. Before the birth of the Christ-child 
the world was struggling for happiness by attempting 
to evolve superior power so as to command by force. 
The King of Peace reversed the order and said, "It 
is more blessed to give than to receive." And does 
not this happy Christmas time indicate that Christen- 
dom is becoming saturated with the spirit of un- 
selfish love? It would be a small, bigoted, and un- 
worthy person who would value the gifts of friends 
at Christmas purely or chiefly for their intrinsic 
worth. We value a thousand times more the spirit 
of love and good-will of which these Christmas gifts 
speak. And it would be a small and selfish, a boor- 
ish and contemptible being who would enjoy the 
gifts he received more than the presents he gave. 
Do we not get a faint experimental idea of the 
thought of Christ in His great and vital principle 
of the superior blessedness of giving? That prin- 
ciple the world never knew until Christ injected it 
into the veins of human thinking and human ex- 
perience. And no one knows the real joy of living 
who has not learned the great joy of service. 
148 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE KING. 

I am told of a plain man with a large heart whose 
cottage home was shadowed by the serious illness of 
his faithful wife. She was very ill, and the true 
home, where love dwelt amidst plain - surroundings 
and gilded them with the glory of heaven's prophecy, 
was threatened with the death of the Christian wife 
and mother. The doctor advised that if she were 
taken to a hospital, where she might have tender 
and skilled nursing, she might recover. She was 
sent to a charity hospital supported by the contri- 
butions of a certain denomination of Christians. 
She recovered. The husband was aboundingly grate- 
ful. He asked, "Who supports this hospital?" He 
was told. He asked, "How much does it cost?" He 
was told that there were various plans, and among 
others the endowment of a bed which cost a thou- 
sand dollars, and that his good wife had occupied 
such a bed while she was ill. He quietly began 
making his plans to save to endow a bed in that 
institution. His saving was slow. He was a work- 
ingman. He was in the habit of smoking, and while 
he was thinking how he could save, he began to 
figure. There is sometimes a great amount of re- 
ligion in "dry figuring." He could save fifty cents 
a week by not smoking. He decided to do so. He 
was also in the habit of stopping at the saloon when he 
149 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

went to his work and on his return, just for a drink, 
and he concluded to stop that and save the money 
for the hospital. In five years he had saved money 
enough to endow the bed. And who knows or can 
measure the pleasure he had in those five years in 
contemplating the joy of being able to help some one ? 
He went and insisted on endowing a bed. Every 
day when he went to his work thereafter, he would 
stop and ask, "Who is in my bed to-day?" One day 
he came, a cold, winter morning, and asked the head 
nurse, "Who is in my bed to-day?" She said, "You 
may come and see." He took his cap in his hand, 
and his heavy boots went clumping up the stairway, 
and he awkwardly stood in the doorway of the room 
where, on the white bed amidst pillows, was a pale- 
faced little waif who had been hurt in a runaway. 
She looked white and thin, but supremely happy. 
The nurse said, "You may talk to her if you like." 
The man, in his awkward manner, said, "It must 
be awful to lie here sufferin' so." "No," said the 
little one, "the bed is so soft, and the folks are so 
good, it will seem bad to go back sell in' papers 
again. I '11 be kind o' sorry when I 'm well." The 
man turned away, wiped the tears of mingled sad- 
ness and gladness, and as he passed the corridor be- 
150 



THE BIRTHDAY OF THE KING. 

low he was heard to murmur, "Well, that is better 
than beer and smoke." 

He had learned the great lesson that true hap- 
piness lies in service, not in selfishness. 

There is another emphasis I would place upon 
the same idea. The choicest and most splendid joy- 
lies in suffering for those we love. What pleasure 
there is in the aching muscles, the tired brain, and 
even the fevered and trembling hand when these 
sufferings are experienced for those we love! Not 
in the sufferings themselves, but in the thought, the 
feeling, the sentiment, if you please, that this is 
wrought for those we love and whom we delight to 
serve. It was the joy that was set before the Christ 
that enabled Him to endure the cross and despise 
the shame. The world never knew the joy of un- 
selfish suffering and self-abnegation until the King of 
kings came and taught the great lesson of supremest 
joy in highest suffering for those we love. And He 
"so loved the world that He gave Himself a ransom." 

To feel that your aching muscles and weary brain 
are the badges of comfort to those you love makes 
the sufferings like clouds before the setting sun at 
summer eve, gilded with a thousand splendors of 
richest joy. 

151 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

A kind-hearted gentleman gave a dinner to three 
thousand poor waifs of a large city. At dinner-time, 
when the throngs of hungry, ragged newsboys, boot- 
blacks, and street gamins were pushing their way 
to the long, well-tilled tables, a hungry-looking little 
lad came quietly to a lady who was serving and 
asked if he could take his dinner home instead of 
eating it there. She asked permission, packed a 
good, full basket for him, and being curious to know 
him further, excused herself, and accompanied him. 
She learned his history. His parents were dead. He 
had a sister younger than he; she was not well, and 
they lived together in a little room in an old attic; 
he was ten years old. They entered the poor, little 
room. There was an old stove, in which a little fire 
was kept burning by small pieces of coal the boy 
gathered along the railway tracks. No furnishings — 
just a few boxes. Jennie, the little girl, was ragged, 
wan, and hungry-looking. The boy took the basket, 
opened it, spread a paper on a box, going into ecsta- 
sies over the food, as he said, "See here what we 
brought you, Jennie/' Then he wiped a tear from 
his face with his soiled hand. "Just look here ! You 
won't be hungry to-day, Jennie." She took a piece 
of cake in one hand and a sandwich in the other, 
and, with eyes beaming, began eating as rapidly as 
152 



THE BIKTHDAY OF THE KING. 

she could. She motioned to the lad to take some, 
too, and as soon as she could clear her well-filled 
mouth sufficiently, said, "You eat, too, Johnny; you 
eat, too." "No," said Johnnny, "I don't want 
nothin' — I don't want anything at all. I am not 
hungry when Jennie has plenty to eat." Being urged 
further, he insisted, "No, you eat it all, Jennie ; some- 
how I do n't feel a bit hungry now, when Jennie has 
plenty to eat." The great-hearted lad had a little 
taste of the Spirit of Jesus when He said, "I have 
meat to eat that ye know not of." 0, what a splen- 
did joy to be emptied of the spirit of selfishness and 
to be filled with the spirit of glad and willing serv- 
ice! To have the motive of life transformed into 
the image of the Christlife! He was rich, and His 
riches were something worth while. He was rich 
in material possessions. He owned all things by 
the best right of all, the right of creation. "By Him 
were all things made. And without Him was not 
anything made that was made." All the flaming 
worlds which in their measureless immensity com- 
pose the universe were His. He had riches in honor. 
Angels bowed before Him and worshiped Him. He 
had highest riches in position. He sat upon the 
throne of heaven and wore the crown of celestial roy- 
alty. But He became poor. And I wish we might 
153 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

never forget that He not only was poor, but that He 
became poor. The surrender of His matchless riches 
was a purely voluntary act. And His poverty was 
poverty indeed. His was a homeless poverty. It was 
a penniless poverty. He had not where to lay His 
head. No money with which to pay the taxes levied 
by the Eoman crown. He suffered a friendless pov- 
erty. One can get along quite well on occasions 
without home and without money, if he but have 
friends. But "His friends forsook Him and fled." 
No home, no money, no friends. But deeper than 
that, He suffered a godless poverty. With no home, 
no money, no friends; yet one may take courage if 
God be with him. On the cross He cried, "My God, 
My God, why host Thou forsaken Me?" A homeless, 
penniless, friendless, godless poverty, dying a will- 
ing offering for the world, "He emptied Himself 
of all but love." Because of this fathomless gift, 
God hath highly exalted Him and hath given Him 
a name which is above every name. He embraced it 
all for the joy of making us rich. Loving service 
is the badge of greatness, the secret of happiness, 
and willing obedience to God, the secret of power 
to render service. 

Hail, glorious Christ-child ! Hail, King of kings 
and Lord of lords! Honored forever be the birth- 
day of The King ! 154 



He Cares for You. 

SENTENCE PRAYER. 

Lord of heaven and earth, receive, we pray Thee, 
our hearty thanksgiving, pardon our manifold sins, in- 
spire our languishing hopes, strengthen our faltering- 
faith, help us to be useful, loyal, and joyful in closely 
and earnestly following Christ. Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON. 

Text, 1 Peter 5: 7, "Casting all your care upon Him; 
for He careth for you." Once become possessed of 
the great truth, wonderful as is God's care for nature, 
that He cares immeasurably more for us, that His 
regard for the weakest of us is that of a Father's im- 
passioned love, there is no room for dullness in the 
contemplation of the sublime fact. And the soul must 
be thrilled with a peaceful but intensely active charm, 
knowable only by experience, and known only to the 
child of God whose soul is vitalized by faith in Christ. 



The Magnetic Power of Christ. 

"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
unto Me."— John 12: 32. 

Attraction is a universal law of existence. Af- 
finities, demonstrable by experiment, are not con- 
fined to the merely material, but are testable in 
the intellectual and spiritual being as well, and 
hence are as reducible to scientific test in the im- 
material realm as in the material. 

Newton discovered and defined attraction, and 
by applying experiment to "a working hypothesis," 
formulated a rule for measuring the power of at- 
traction of material bodies. He said, "It is a power 
operating between all particles of matter, directly as 
the mass, and inversely as the square, of the dis- 
tance." Experiments fit the hypothesis, and, al- 
though we do not know why it is so, as the theory 
fits the fact, science builds upon it confidently. The 
most progressive and up-to-date methods of mental 
instruction take account of and build upon the 
equally scientific theory of the law of apperception, 
15? 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

by which one idea, sentiment, or imagination in the 
mind will attract to it other ideas, sentiments, or 
imaginations of the same kind and character. When 
a mind gets one thought of a particular kind, it is 
easier for it to gather other thoughts of the same 
character. Get one historical fact, and as you glean 
about in the fields of literature that one historical 
fact will make it easier to secure another, and these 
two will become magnets to attract others. Master 
one problem in square root or equations, and you 
have not only developed a mental power that will en- 
able you to master another one with greater ease, but 
you have created a greater attraction for problems of 
the same kind. No truth is more patent than that 
the mind will tend to gather to itself with increasing 
ease and power the kind of truth or error which it 
already holds, and in time will be mastered by it if 
given over to any certain element, to the exclusion 
of others that would tend to keep the mind in broad 
and steady equipoise. 

What is true of mind is true of heart. Passion 
and principle of conviction are as susceptible to this 
law of attraction as are mind matter. The exercise 
of an unholy passion not only creates additional 
power to do wrong contemplated and forms a habit 
of evil more strongly, but there is accumulated into 
158 



THE MAGNETIC POWER OF CHRIST. 

the sum total of moral character that which will at- 
tract its kind. A lie is a magnet to gather other lies. 
The first may be a light-colored one, but it has the 
element of lie in it, and will attract to it those that 
are of a darker hue. A man never did a bad thing, 
but that there flocked about him numerous tempta- 
tions to do the same bad thing again. It manifests 
itself in society and in the secular occupations of men. 
Let it be known that a lawyer has done crooked busi- 
ness and aided in perverting, instead of maintaining, 
justice, and those who have crooked work they 
want done, and those who wish to pervert instead of 
maintain justice, will seek him as their counsel. 
Let a business man do dishonest things, and there 
will not only be increasing tendency on his part to 
do dishonest things with increasing shrewdness and 
fiendish delight, but he will attract to him others 
who are dishonest, and they will find a satisfaction 
in paying him in his own moral coin. When a man 
makes up his mind to beat everybody he can, every- 
body who deals with him has a tendency to beat him 
if they can. Ah, how practically true are the Savior's 
words, "With what measures ye mete, it shall be 
measured to you again/' 

The "orthodox" theory of a right start in the 
moral character, by the new birth and the entering 
159 



THE KING'S CONQUEST, 

into the regenerated heart of the presence and power 
of the Christlife is eminently scientific as well as 
Scriptural. Christ is the embodiment of all that is 
good. A new boy had just commenced his work in 
the retail department of a large hardware store. He 
was exceedingly anxious to make a good impression, 
for it was his first position. He was very much afraid 
he would make some blunder, and because of his fear 
was the more likely to do so, for it is psychologically 
true that we are very apt to do the very thing that we 
are afraid we will do. This lad was carrying a pack- 
age of small wire nails and his nervous little ringers 
let them fall and they were scattered over the smooth 
floor. His heart leaped to his throat and tears came 
to his eyes, and the thoughtless clerk, who had sent 
him on the errand, spoke sharply to him, saying, 
"You can pick them up for your pains." The little 
fellow went to work, but the highly polished little 
wires eluded his nervous grasp and it was very slow 
work. To add to his discomfort he saw the senior 
proprietor coming toward him. He hoped that the 
man would pass by, but he stopped, and the lad looked 
up a moment through his tears. The kind-hearted 
man saw the little quivering chin and remembered 
that he was a boy once, then he patted the little fel- 
low on the head and said: "You dropped them, 
160 



THE MAGNETIC POWEE OF CHRIST. 

did n't you, Johnny ? Too bad ! Take this magnet, 
and yon can pick them all up in a few minutes." 
Christ dwelling in the heart by faith is the mighty 
spiritual Magnet, attracting all that is good. He will 
gather all the scattered forces of our lives and dry 
our tears and heal our broken hearts. But, 0, what 
slow, wearisome, and unprofitable toil it is trying to 
gather moral and spiritual elements without Him! 
It is often said, and more times thought, that 
Christ is not attractive to universal humanity. It is 
even claimed that He is repulsive to unregenerate 
man. Now it is true that the prophet has said of 
Him, "He is despised and rejected of men, a Man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief." But he ex- 
plains why "He is despised and rejected of men." 
It is because "We hid as it were our faces from Him." 
And while our faces are hid we see not the desirable 
beauty in Him. But when He is lifted up before the 
eyes of men there is something in every human being, 
unless he be of reprobate mind, which responds to 
the magnetic touch of the suffering God-man, and to 
those who come to know Him by a living faith He is 
become "the chief est among ten thousand and the one 
altogether lovely." The words of the text are among 
His most sublime utterances. Though "never man 
spake like this Man," seldom did "this Man" speak 
11 161 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

so wonderfully as in this utterance. The state- 
ment stands like a tall spire among the domes of 
truth. It is prophetic of His coming Kingdom in the 
earth, when Christ, exalted in individual hearts, shall 
make society pure and strong and Godlike by making 
individuals like Him, by being drawn, not driven 
unto Him. When this is done, society will be bound 
together by the unbreakable bonds of spiritual mag- 
netism; as the lines of interlacing cordage hold the 
universe. 

We can see something of His attractive power 
now, after the lapse of centuries, but how strange and 
impossible it must have seemed to His contempo- 
raries ! Then, outside a few people of limited in- 
fluence on the age in which they lived, Christ was 
known only to be the subject of contempt or ridicule. 
He was accused of imposture, necromancy, and even 
diabolism. Some said, "He hath a dev.il and is mad." 
Others said, "He casteth out devils by the power of the 
prince of devils." The rabble before Pilate cried 
in fiendish chorus, "Crucify Him ! Crucify Him !" 
And Pilate, though he found no fault with Him, when 
the Jews cried in unison, "If thou let this Man go 
thou art not Caesar's friend," and the Roman official 
thought he saw in that cry a threat to politically de- 
capitate him, reversed his judgment and released unto 
162 



THE MAGNETIC POWEK OF CHEIST. 

them Barabbas and delivered Jesus to be scourged and 
crucified. Christ was grossly misunderstood. In the 
midst of such a public sentiment in regard to Him 
how bold and startling must have seemed these 
words! They implied that He was above all men 
and superior to them. And that meant very much. 

Three systems of human dynamics move the 
world forward and upward — physical, mental, and 
spiritual. While strictly speaking there is no such 
thing as physical power, yet power which is manifest 
through natural law with material substance as the 
instrument may be so called for purposes of consider- 
ation. Mental power, which is operated through the 
creations of man subject to mental law and manifest 
in systems of human government, literature, art, 
philosophy, and science, may be distinguished as 
mental power. There are the spiritual forces of 
humanity — conscience, will, and affections — through 
which convictions, volitions, and emotions find their 
inspiration. These three systems of power move the 
world forward and upward. Men had lived — were 
then living — who made bold claims to greatness in 
all these departments and gave evidence of the just- 
ness of their professions. 

The Egyptians had accomplished wonders in the 
mastery of nature's powers and in commanding them, 
163 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

and the pyramids and sphinx told mutely but em- 
phatically of a wonderful age of scientific power over 
material things. Greece had brought her contribution 
of refined intelligence, and her poets, sculptors, 
painters, architects, and orators proudly laid the 
trophies of their genius at the feet of the world and 
challenged duplication. The Jews had an ancient 
and honored religion of conscience, faith, and de- 
votion, sweeping the past with its inspired history 
and the future with its prophecy, exemplifying its 
might in its wonderful characters: Abraham, who 
was faith incarnate; Moses, a meek and marvelous 
statesman; David, the poet-king and genius of re- 
pentance; Elijah, a past master in prevailing prayer; 
Isaiah, a firebrand of holy zeal ; Jeremiah, a holy seer, 
whose every word seemed dripping with a sparkling 
pathos; these and many others besieged earth with a 
holy persuasion and heaven with prevailing prayer, 
challenging religionists of every age to equal their 
conviction, faith, and devotion. But Jesus sweeps all 
ages and all realms of power with the claim, "I will 
draw all men unto Me." 

The statement is made doubly startling by the 

further claim that not only He, but He on His cross, 

shall form this universal attraction. "This He said 

signifying what death He should die." The cross was 

164 



THE MAGNETIC POWER OF CHRIST. 

an emblem of shame, disgrace, pain, and difficulty. 
Yet the Savior's teaching was that they who would 
exalt Him must deny themselves and take up the 
cross and follow Him. The Christ crucified, held 
up first literally, the dying sacrifice for sin on Cal- 
vary, and then in the hearts of His followers, exem- 
plified in self-abnegation and righteous doing, in ab- 
ject and constant obedience to His will in all things. 
These shall "draw all men unto Him." What start- 
ling claims ! The cross a magnet to "draw all men." 
That these are, however, magnetic attractions in 
the personal elements of Jesus and in the elements 
which His cross represents, when wrought out in the 
lives of those in whose hearts He dwells by faith, 
which are universally attractive to the good in all 
people, both philosophy and history unite to evidence. 
Not only Christ with His total self-abandon, superla- 
tive forgiveness, well-wrought system of liberty, and 
His willing death for the eternal rescue of others, even 
His enemies, has a mighty potent magnetism which 
grips the hearts of considerate men with a strong and 
loving grasp, but the cross itself is attractive to the 
manly heart. There is that in every human soul 
which is charmed to a greater or less degree with that 
which requires endurance and even pain, to accom- 
plish a good and humane act. How the multitude will 
165 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

cheer and shower congratulations that are genuine 
upon the courageous fireman who risks his life and 
comes out of the tottering building, shaking the fire 
from his shining coat, with singed hair and blistered 
face and hands, depositing a rescued child in the 
arms of its frantic mother. 

Then there is that in humanity which is charmed, 
even overwhelmed sometimes, by that which is diffi- 
cult. And the charm lies not alone in that which is 
to be accomplished, but in its very difficulty. It even 
makes men's recreations fascinating. In a game of 
skill (the only kind a manly man or a womanly 
woman should ever engage, games of chance inspiring 
other and depraved motives) a chief element of its 
interest lies in its difficulty, the evenly matched skill 
of the competitors lending to the charm. It is so in 
every laudable occupation. The physician that is 
guided by manly ideals has a peculiar professional de- 
light in a complicated and intricate case that calls 
out his skill, and when he sees himself the master, 
there is a charm that he never could know in the 
mere treatment of "colds" and headaches and other 
simple ailments to which flesh is heir. The business 
man has a peculiar joy in the mastery of hard finan- 
cial problems, and in the surmounting of great diffi- 
culties and in the climbing to success over persistent 
166 



THE MAGNETIC POWER OF CHRIST. 

obstacles. While the indolent man has a tendency "to 
move over the lines of least resistance/' the manly, the 
courageous, the heroic in man is inspired by the hard 
and the difficult and the complicated. He is hardly a 
man who has not been and who is not charmed by a 
difficult task, not alone for what lies at the end of it, 
but for the charming sensation of contention between 
hope and despair, faith and doubt, the very exercise 
of which girts the soul with power. Even the cross 
itself has its attractions to the best in man. 

There is no tester of alleged fact like experiment. 
Christ and His cross exalted in human hearts and 
lives have shown Him to be all that He claims : above 
all and attracting all, being the elevating power of the 
ages through the agency of physical, intellectual, and 
spiritual things. The law of commanding by obe- 
dience which He taught, by becoming obedient unto 
death, even the death of the cross, has enabled man- 
kind to order as servants the forces of nature. All 
elevating literature, art, and science are inspired by 
His magnetic presence, and to take Him out of them 
would be to take all their vitality and attractiveness. 
True, Christ is left out of many books and paintings 
and statues that sell. These productions are made 
to sell and "they have their reward/' But they are 
not true literature or art. Such productions may 
167 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

be clothed in literary language, be executed in the 
most approved styles of color and form; but a book 
whose thoughts are clothed in literary language is no 
more certainly a literary work, than a man is neces- 
sarily a soldier because he is dressed in uniform. A 
picture executed well is no more necessarily a true 
work of art than a man is necessarily a "scholar be- 
cause he wears a cap and gown" and caries a Latin 
book under his arm. True literature is the soul 
and thought as well as the manner of expres- 
sion; and art lies in the theme as well as its 
expression. There is, therefore, more true litera- 
ture in some single sentences than in other well- 
written and beautifully bound volumes. And some 
very simple paintings are better and more enduring 
art than others of broad canvas and most exquisite 
technique. Christ and His cross in some form consti- 
tute the attraction of all living, vitalizing literature, 
science, and art of the civilized world in this age, 
and in all ages since His glorious but tragic exalta- 
tion. And the early prophets and bards made Him 
in prospect the soul of their productions. A few 
great works of literature outside the Bible have be- 
come universally great, and they have inspired most 
others. Feeble indeed would be the literature of the 
age should we take out, together with their influence 
168 



THE MAGNETIC POWER OF CHRIST. 

upon others, the Bible, "The Divine Comedy/' by 
Dante; "Jerusalem Delivered," by Tasso; "Paradise 
Lost," by Milton; "The Messiah," by Pope; "Pil- 
grim's Progress," by Bunyan, and William Shake- 
speare's dramas. And the Bible is the inspiration 
of all the others ; and Christ is the Soul of the Bible. 
Take Him out of it, and it would be a strange, 
cold, dead, mummified body without the soul of truth. 
Jesus is the Magnet of the intellectual world. 

That He is the Master Religionist who appeals 
to faith, hope, and love of universal humanity is 
gloriously true. The elements which He showed in 
His life of self-abnegation and His willing death 
are such an appeal to the moral and religious nature 
in man that they storm the very citadels of selfish- 
ness, doubt, and despair, and inspire self-sacrifice, 
faith, and hope. An exalted Christ in pulpit, pew, 
and business mart, in book and song, in paint and 
bronze, in marbled wall and garnished dome; with 
man and his works exhibiting the suffering Christ, 
with all that He and His cross mean, both in prin- 
ciple and in fact, will draw all men unto Him; 
and being thus drawn to Him, they will be drawn 
close to each other, and thus will all bitter strifes 
and human differences end in a "community of 
mutual interests." 

169 



The Glory of God. 

SENTENCE PRAYER. 

Dear Lord, help us in our thinking, so that com- 
passing the past by recollection, the present by experi- 
ence, and the future by faith, we may profit by our 
errors, be inspired by devotion to duty, and that we may 
be firmly established in hope of eternal life, through 
Christ our Omnipotent Savior. Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON. 

Text, 1 John 1: 5, "God is Light." Light gilds 
everything with glory. Not only flowers, mosses, fruits, 
and foliage, but shattered stumps and cragged rocks, 
clouds and cataracts. The dark mists rise in banks 
of turbulent clouds. The thunders rumble in threaten- 
ing wrath. Gloom enswathes field and forest. But 
when the sun breaks forth there is an arched bridge 
of splendor spanning the sky on which heavenly angels 
of beauty stand arm in arm to watch the agonies of 
the dying tempest. So with the troubled soul on whom 
the "Sun of righteousness arises with healing in His 
wings." 



Benefits of Thanksgiving. 

"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord." 
— Psa. 92: 1. 

Adverse conditions surround every life and arise 
to hinder trie soul in its efforts to reach the goal of 
happiness and to attain the ideal of pure and noble 
character. 

As nature produces weeds and briers more easily 
than roses and corn, so it seems easier for the memory 
to practically retain recollections of adverse condi- 
tions and experiences rather than the' good received 
and- the victories achieved. Lord Byron, speaking 
of the shipwreck of Don Juan, says: 

It made a scene men do not soon forget. 

For they remember battles, fires, and wrecks, 
Or any other thing that brings regret. 

Hence the natural tendency to the evolution of 

a spirit of pessimism. To dwell in thought upon 

the evils which come to us or which we encounter, 

is a tendency which may become not only a trouble- 

173 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

some habit, a serious fault, or the iconoclast of happi- 
ness, but a soul-destroying vice. 

To neglect to express gratitude for blessings re- 
ceived is by no means a new fault in human practice. 
The Savior while on the earth, after having cured 
ten miserable lepers of their loathsome disease, when 
only one had practical appreciation enough to even 
render thanks for the inestimable blessing of health 
which had been bestowed by- miraculous grace, said, 
pathetically: "Were there not ten cleansed? Where 
are the nine?" Gratitude is the mother of happi- 
ness, and finds the sweet expression of her life in 
thanksgiving for benefits received. 

We are to distinguish between thanks and mere 
praise. Inanimate creatures may and do render 
praise to their Creator. Only intelligent moral be- 
ings can render thanks. It involves a condition of 
soul, an intelligent mind, and the exercise of voli- 
tionary powers. 

Our text declares that "It is a good thing to give 
thanks unto the Lord." 

My self-imposed task will be to indicate, first, 
how and in what manner it is a good thing to render 
thanks unto the Lord. Second, some things for which 
we will find it a good thing to render thanks unto 
the Lord. 

174 



BENEFITS OF THANKSGIVING. 

Then, how and in what manner is it a good thing 
to give thanks unto the Lord? 

Our duties in life are in three groups: Duties to 
ourselves, to our fellow-men, and to God. 

It is a good thing for us to give thanks unto 
the Lord because of the self-derived benefits. 

It is so common a truism that it need not be 
stated, yet I will state it, not because it is new, nor 
even because it is true; for even "the truth should 
not be spoken at all times/' and stale truths had 
sometimes better be left unsaid; but I shall say this 
because it can not be too often enforced upon human 
thought, and because it contains so much of ethical 
principle, without which the best results of life could 
not be achieved. It is this : What one is that he will 
do. His being determines his doing. Not each iso- 
lated act, which because of influences may be better 
or worse than the heart's motive, but the average 
trend of human conduct will indicate the character. 

"By their fruits ye shall know them." A tree 
bearing figs can not be robbed of the glory of being 
a fig tree, whether it grow in a forest of oaks, in 
an orchard among trees of like character with itself, 
or in a thicket of brambles. A thorn tree or a thistle 
stock bears evidence that it is a thorn or thistle, 
whether in forest, glen, or on barren prairie, in a 
175 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

garden of flowers, or in a thicket of briers. Fruit, 
not location or environment, indicates character. 

That which makes strong and correct character 
is without question "a good thing." It is good for 
the sake of the character itself, and for the sake of 
the influence upon those with whom the character is 
surrounded. 

Gratitude is one of the essential elements of char- 
acter. No one can be useful or happy without it. 
It gives depth and permanence. He who holds it 
as a principle that God and man is under lasting 
obligation to him and, no matter what he receives, 
he has never yet been the recipient of that which 
his worth demands, that man — no matter how rich 
in gold he may be, no matter how learned or natu- 
rally brilliant he may be — that man is superficial, 
vacillating, unreliable, disagreeable, and unhappy. 
On the other hand, he who takes the attitude that 
he is like Paul, debtor to God and man, and holds 
a spirit of thankful appreciation for all that he may 
receive that tends to his welfare, that man may be 
poor, he may be ignorant, he may be mediocre in 
talent or acquirement, yet he is stable, helpful, re- 
liable, agreeable, and happy. His gratitude will im- 
part to his character an element that nothing else 
can supply. 

176 



BENEFITS OF THANKSGIVING. 

At least three elements are necessary to personal 
happiness, which all include in their ideal experience ; 
a consciousness of good possessed, appreciation of 
good expressed, and harmony of conduct with the 
ideal. 

Now, the rendering of thanks to God tends to all 
of these, and in a marked degree. There could be 
no gratitude without a consciousness of good pos- 
sessed, and true gratitude is in exact proportion to 
such consciousness. To give expression to this grati- 
tude in the spontaneous outflow of the spirit of 
appreciation will enlarge and strengthen the element 
of gratitude on the principle of the common law 
that use strengthens. So that the more thanks are 
rendered, the more gratitude; the more gratitude, 
the greater consciousness of good possessed, hence the 
more happiness. 

To receive thanks and appreciation for efforts 
to do good to others, we have said, is another element 
of individual happiness. On the simple yet mighty 
principle in the law of action and reaction, and which 
the Savior gave us to understand is as potent in 
the moral as in the material world, "with what 
measures ye mete it shall be measured to you again ;" 
on this principle, he who renders thanks for good 
received will receive the same in return, so that it 
12 177 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

is a good thing to give thanks because it brings 
thanks. And by this rendering of gratitude unto God 
as. well as unto men, there will come appreciation of 
the good we try to do. And one day they who have 
pleased God will receive His eulogy, "Well done, good 
and faithful servant.'' The evolution of this spirit 
of gratitude tends, as is readily seen, to harmonize 
head faith with heart faith; to place conscience and 
character in parallel grooves, so that there is inward 
peace. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the 
Lord, then, because of the benefits to the soul that 
is exercised thereby. 

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord 
because of the results accruing from our lives to 
those with whom we come in contact. For "no man 
liveth unto himself alone." 

God uses human instruments to accomplish His 
noblest works of grace. In view of what we have 
already said, it will be readily conceded that a spirit 
of gratitude makes men broader as well as deeper 
in character. They are more tolerant and charitable. 
It makes them to attribute the best, not the worst, 
motives to their fellows. The tendency to the in- 
terpretation of the acts of our fellow-men may serve 
as a fair index to the tendencies of our own char- 
acters. 

178 



BENEFITS OF THANKSGIVING. 

When, in Victor Hugo's masterpiece, "Les Mis- 
er ables," Jean Valjean, after his reform, entered into 
a new life of self-denial and service for others in 
the village of M — , and while he made large money 
from his newly discovered process for making beads 
and ornaments, there were many who said, "He wants 
to be rich ;" but when it was called to their attention 
that he gave more to the city and to the poor than 
he retained for himself, they were perplexed. When 
the king offered him an appointment as mayor of 
the city, then these gossips said, "It is all clear 
now — he wants political preferment;" but when he 
declined the appointment, they were deeper than ever 
in perplexity. When the king tendered him the honor 
of the cross, they were sure they had solved the mys- 
tery of his generosity. He wanted preferment in the 
Church; but when he declined even that honor, they 
were overwhelmed with perplexity. They were in- 
capable of conceiving of an unselfish motive as the 
promoter of his generous deeds. 

There are people who were doubtless in the 
thought of the great French novelist whom we see 
every day. They have no eyes to see motives other 
than selfishness, because they themselves have no such 
broad motives. Only an unselfish man can see and 
appreciate an unselfish act. Only a kind and gen- 
179 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

erous person can attribute right motives to kind and 
generous deeds of others. Such a spirit as the ren- 
dering of true thanks imparts will make us broader, 
more tolerant, and charitable with the deeds, the 
words, the religious beliefs, and even the manifest 
errors of others. 

We should render thanks to God because He is 
the Author of all that is good, and because He can, 
on conditions which we may meet, make "all things 
to work together for our good." 

While we should "in all things give thanks to 
God, we are by no means required to render thanks 
to Him for all things. Eeverses have come to you 
by the dishonesty of unscrupulous men. You have 
been buffeted and tried and tempted by Satanic in- 
fluences. Sickness, accident, and death have beset 
your path. These are inimical to your fondest and 
purest hopes and antagonistic to your better and 
nobler nature. "When these have come you have said, 
"0, I am so wicked and rebellious, I can not thank 
God for this!" Dearly beloved, these calamities are 
not fiatic works of God, and you are not required 
to render thanks for them, or to accept them as com- 
ing from Him. They are the results of violated law 
somewhere, sometime, by some intelligence, though 
we may not be able to see or know where. It may 
180 



BENEFITS OF THANKSGIVING. 

have been through either vice or ignorance. God 
does not violate His own laws from either cause, else 
He would not be God. 

Is it possible that God, who is the essence of 
truth, and who has characterized His Son as "The 
Truth/' and who has made truth one of the essential 
elements of righteousness in His moral law — is it 
possible that it is He who uses unscrupulous and 
dishonest men to rob you, either on the highway or 
by dishonest dealing, so that you suffer financial 
reverses? Is it rational to charge such to God? 

God has said in His Commandments, "Thou shalt 
not kill." And His Son said, He came not to de- 
stroy men's lives, but to save them. Is it reasonable, 
is it thinkable, that He who said, Thou shalt not kill, 
will use the assassin's hand, some frightful accident, 
or some poisonous disease as His agent of death, and 
violate thus in a flagrant manner His own laws? 
No, no, a thousand times no; I can not, I need not, 
I will not believe that God is the Author of the 
awful calamities of life. 

I could not love the despoiler of my home, the 
destroyer of my innocent children, the assassinator 
of virtue, the author of death, though he were deified. 
God is good; all He does is for the best. But all 
is not for the best, for all is not from Him. For 
181 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

all good things we will thank Him, and increasingly 
love Him for His tender mercies. But "the wages 
of sin is death." We will hate the author of our 
sorrows. "Jesus Christ came to destroy the works 
of the devil/' We will hail with gratitude His holy 
mission. He vanquished death, and "brought life 
and immortality to light in the gospel." He "rose 
for our justification." He is become the despoiler 
of death. 

All is not the best for all. But to those who love 
God then all things may be made to work together 
for good. Even the wrath of men may be made to 
praise Him. Marvelous grace, the glorious display 
of infinite love, that, on conditions which all may 
meet, a love which brings willing and glad obedience 
to the divine will, through Christ, God's infinite 
providence is so ordered that all things may be used 
for good. Not for things evil, however; not for the 
wicked devices of men, not for the temptations of 
Satan, not for the murderous designs of the depraved 
agents of the Satanic world will we render thanks; 
but for all good things coming from the hand of our 
loving Father, and for His marvelous grace, which 
can gather these adverse results of evil and fashion 
them into good for us at the behest of infinite grace 
and as the outflow of His fathomless love. 
182 



BENEFITS OF THANKSGIVING. 

And who can fathom this mighty power, this 
tender love, this gracious wisdom, which can, for the 
obedient soul, weave the blood-red threads of battle, 
the pure white cords of sorrow's tears, the black and 
dastardly warp of robbery and falsehood, the mottled 
woof of trouble and adversity, in the loom of His 
all-wise and all-gracious Providence, so that all shall 
produce a beautiful garment of loving grace to shield 
the soul and ornament the spirits of the faithful? 
"He wills not that any should perish." Suffering 
does not please Him. He would that all would come 
unto Him and live. 



183 



Filled with the Spirit. 

SENTENCE PRAYER. 

O Thou gracious Giver of grace, for every day and 
trial impart unto each of our people daily blessings 
for daily needs, helping us to the constant exercise of 
abounding thankfulness for the abundant blessings of 
the past, realizing that in Him is fullness of joy and at 
His right hand are pleasures for evermore. Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON. 

Text, Acts 2: 4, "They were all filled with the Holy 
Ghost." The Holy Spirit is the vital power of the 
Church. His presence and active energies operate, not 
through any particular equipage, but He lives in the 
hearts of those who open their spirits to receive Him. 
He comes not in response to more and better organi- 
zation, but in response to prayer. "He is more willing 
to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him than 
parents are to give good gifts unto their children." 
Let all our people pray earnestly and faithfully, open- 
ing their hearts to receive Him, that through the activi- 
ties of each life and the organized efforts of His Church, 
divine power may accomplish through us the divine 
purpose. 



The Final Triumph of the Re- 
deemer's Kingdom. 

"There shall be a handful of corn in the earth upon 
the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake 
like Lebanon; and they of the city shall flourish like 
grass of the earth."— Psa. 72: 16. 

This beautiful Psalm, which is conceded to be 
Messianic, is said by some good authorities to be 
"a Psalm of David for Solomon/' and by others to 
be a composition of Solomon himself. It seems from 
the twentieth verse that it is a prayer of David. 
It seems very likely that the sentiment of it was 
uttered by David near the close of his eventful life 
and that his son Solomon put the sentiment into 
poetic form. As the old king stood on the verge of 
eternity he left the prophetic utterance, which his 
son with the pathos of love put into poetry. 

While primarily the statement referred to the 
kingdom of Solomon, its far-reaching prophetic sig- 
nificance alludes to the kingdom of Christ in the 
earth and in heaven. The domains of the "King 
187 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

of kings and Lord of lords." The allusion is to a 
very interesting portion of nature, the Lebanon Moun- 
tains and their environs. This sublime portion of 
Palestine is situated on the southeast of the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. It is about one hundred and ten miles 
in length, and the average width at the base of the 
mountains is about twenty miles. It slopes gradually 
from the northeast to the southwest. The highest 
point is over ten thousand feet above the sea level, 
and is about twenty-five miles from the northern ex- 
tremity of the range. Some twenty miles south of 
this giant peak is the well and symmetrically rounded 
summit of Sunnin, at an elevation of eight thousand 
five hundred feet. Several miles south of this is 
Jabel Kennesah, towering more than six thousand 
eight hundred feet above the placid sea below. And 
still south of this are the "Twin Peaks," each six 
thousand five hundred feet above the sea. These 
peaks stand far above the main portion of the range, 
the average elevation being about three thousand 
feet. Prom the "Twin Peaks" the range slopes grad- 
ually southward until it reaches the deep ravine cut 
by the flowing of the river Litina, which marks the 
southern boundary of Lebanon. 

The eastern slope is of no particular interest. It 
is covered with forests of oak, hemlock, and other 
188 



TEIUMPH OF THE KEDEEMEK'S KINGDOM. 

timbers, growing in more or less luxuriance, with 
openings here and there from which there protrude 
jagged and irregular rocks and ledges of limestone 
debris. But the western slope is of particular inter- 
est. From the sea below the scene is one of sublime 
grandeur rather than delicate beauty. Above the 
seeming gigantic walls the peaks of the high moun- 
tains rise like giant sentinels. On their heads are 
white hoods of snow, ornamented with jewels of ice 
which sparkle in the sunlight when sometimes the 
temperature in the valleys below is as high as ninety- 
eight degrees above zero. The streams of water 
formed by the melting of the snow have cut little 
ravines down the mountain sides, and the vegetation 
growing on their banks, mingled with rainbows 
formed in the mists, seem like beautiful ribbons 
fastening the immaculate hoods beneath the rocky 
chins of the great mountain sentinels, whose feet 
seem bathed in the waters of the sea while their 
stony lips kiss the blue face of the sky. 

Along the sides of these walls are numerous ter- 
races, which distance contracts so that they seem like 
delicate and regular stairways. The whole forms a 
scene of rich grandeur and sublime beauty. View- 
ing it from above, the scene is changed. These 
terraces are covered with villages, groves, vineyards, 
189 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

and orchards of pears, plums, pomegranates, and 
olives, and with wheat fields, groves of cedars, and 
gardens of flowers. Every conceivable product of the 
clime is growing in rich abundance, for here is the 
richest soil of Palestine. But at an elevation of about 
six thousand feet vegetation is scant, and above that 
point very little grows ; but all is a vast, sterile waste. 
There is little animal life. A few coyotes and vul- 
tures harbor among the rocks and make marauding 
visits to the fruitful regions down the mountains, 
which are about all the inhabitants of which these 
more elevated regions may boast. They compose a 
vast, bleak, lifeless waste. This is the figure of the 
text. "There shall be a handful/' or, a better transla- 
tion, "an abundance of corn in the tops of the moun- 
tains." This sterile waste shall be covered with rich 
harvests, so that the winds sweeping over it shall 
cause it to moan and sigh with its burdens of fruitage 
like the richly-laden terraces of Lebanon. 

The text, then, by suggestive implication, opens 
before our thought a cluster of three great truths to 
which I call your attention. First, the world lies 
in wickedness, sin, and moral death. Second, God 
has a plan for the salvation of the world from this 
deplorable state into a condition of fruitfulness, har- 
mony, and beauty. Third, there shall be no failure 
190 



TRIUMPH OF THE REDEEMER'S KINGDOM. 

in the full accomplishment of this plan. It does not 
take a very careful philosopher to discover that there 
is something wrong with the morals of this world. 
That the race is struggling to obtain and attain 
something which it has not and is not. All can 
see that there is deep and pathetic need of help 
that is adequate, for man's lone efforts in the di- 
rection of relief have been and are demonstrated 
failures, and evil still roams the earth. 

See doubt in all forms centering in skepticism 
as to the truth and inspiration of the Bible, and 
as to the divine person and mission of Jesus Christ. 
This is a menace to the essential life of moral and 
religious truth, and is a great giant of error breath- 
ing his freezing breath upon the ages. Selfish greed 
in commerce and political policies with steel grip is 
strangling the vitality and hope from the poor and 
the weak. War with its bloody hand is besmearing the 
earth with destruction and death. The congestion 
of wealth in the hands of some whose hearts are 
frozen by ill-gotten prosperity is starving the inno- 
cent in a land of plenty. The great cities, now 
large and rapidly growing larger, filled with the 
very poor, living in conditions which necessarily en- 
gender the lowest morals and tend to completely ex- 
tinguish the light of religious light and truth, are 
191 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

becoming more and more a peril to righteousness. 
Wendell Phillips, seemingly with the premonitions of 
prophecy, said, "Our great cities will yet strain this 
Nation as slavery never did." The awful, Satanic 
power of strong drink is searing the earth with 
physical, intellectual, and moral ruin. Who can 
measure the destructive power of this monster? It 
crushes homes, breaks hearts, dethrones reason, as- 
sassinates virtue, blights innocence, wrecks fortunes, 
damns souls. Its power seems resistless and increas- 
ingly defiant. The political, social, and commercial 
forces of the Nation seem chained in cruel and 
relentless bondage to this monster, whose home is 
hell, but who inhabits the earth and roams it defi- 
antly, blowing his fetid breath of destruction into 
the face of every virtue. Look, too, across the sea, 
beyond the pale of civilization, and see the immeas- 
urably worse conditions of heathenism with its mil- 
lions in dense darkness of degrading superstition, 
with its awful creeds of faith and practice, the de- 
tails of which are too revolting and heart-breaking 
to dwell upon, if it were necessary. The multitudes 
of victims of these awful powers of evil in this life, 
together with interested spectators in the world be- 
yond, join in the pathetic cry, "How long, Lord, 
how long?" But God has a plan for the salvation 
192 



TEIUMPH OF THE EEDEEMER'S KINGDOM. 

of the world from these powers of evil and moral 
destruction. Everything which God has touched re- 
veals a plan; an end to be reached, and a systematic 
and intelligent use of forces for the accomplishment 
of that end. We can not always see the way these 
forces act, for the "secret things belong to God." 

"We can sometimes see the why of certain things 
when other things or events explain them. We see 
the tiny blade of corn, then the stalk, but these are 
explained by "the full corn in the ear." The cre- 
ation of the worlds and their development is ex- 
plained only when we see man, the climax of creation, 
in possession and control of nature's power. But 
when he falls into sin we are in confusion. All 
seems a failure. But when we hear the promises, 
"The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's 
head," and "There shall come forth a rod out of 
the stem of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign 
to the people, to it shall the Gentile seek, and his 
rest shall be glorious," and "The scepter shall not 
depart from Judah nor a lawgiver from between his 
feet until Shiloh come," and when in the "fullness 
of time there was born in the manger at Bethlehem 
a Savior which is Christ the Lord," who after an 
eventful life in which He displayed His power over 
nature, over moral evil, and over death, and hear 
13 193 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

from the manifest Son of God the distinct announce- 
ment that "the Son of man is come to seek and to 
save that which was lost," and from the apostle that 
"by the grace of God, Jesus Christ tasted death for 
every man/' so that "whosoever will may come and 
partake of the waters of life freely," then creation 
is explained. Not in its modus operandi, but as to 
the reason of its existence. Eedemption is the only 
rational explanation of creation, and the final salva- 
tion of the world from sin is the only rational ex- 
planation of redemption. God's gift of His Son 
to redeem the world was not to correct a blunder, 
else His wisdom is impeached ; nor is the plan of 
human salvation to be a failure. It need not be a 
failure in any particular case. It will not be, so far 
as the ultimate rescue of the world from sin is con- 
cerned, and the final separation of the good from 
the evil and bringing into one eternal kingdom all 
who, to the fullness of the light obtained or obtain- 
able, have obeyed the commandments of God and 
are saved through faith in Christ. There will be no 
failure of God's plans for the rescue of this world 
from the thraldom of sin. 

While the obstacles are great, the resistance tre- 
mendous, and the power of the adverse aggressive- 
ness gigantic, they are not measureless, and He that 
194 



TEIUMPH OF THE BEDEEMEK'S KINGDOM. 

is for the right and the truth is more than all that 
can be against it. Pessimism is detestable and in- 
sulting to God. But it is no less so than a foolish 
optimism which refuses to take note of foes and ob- 
stacles. No one can fail to see the awful character 
of sin by its awful fruits in this world. But in 
going to war with the armies of wrong and counting 
and measuring the foes, we are glad to conclude that 
with God "we are able." In the contemplation of 
the building of righteousness, that building of spir- 
itual and moral elegance, we are glad to conclude that 
by His help we "are able to finish," and that the 
stately spiritual temple is rising, as one "living stone" 
after another is being put in its eternal place by the 
Divine "Master Builder." The time is coming when 
unbelief shall be dissolved in truth. When "the earth 
shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of 
God as the waters fill the sea." "And none shall 
say to his neighbor, Know the Lord, for all shall 
know Him, from the least to the greatest." When 
selfish greed will be destroyed and the golden rule 
of true reciprocity will be practiced. When the last 
dramshop will be closed. When the last drunkard 
will fall, and no boy will step in line to take his 
place. When heathenism, with all its ghastly prac- 
tices and degrading conditions, will be penetrated 
195 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

with the light of elevating truth. When the nations 
shall not learn war any more. When spears will be 
made into pruning-hooks and swords into plowshares. 
When bristling parks of artillery will no longer wait 
to discharge destruction upon a foe. When an angry 
sea will no longer hold to her breast great battle- 
ships. But when peace will reign, and the Prince 
of peace control the earth. When the social, political, 
intellectual, and moral disintegration of the world 
will be displaced by universal union, and wonder- 
ing angels will behold on that glad day the rising 
sun kiss the folds of a banner of freedom floating 
over a united world, with the banner of the King of 
peace above all flags. 'T is coming as sure as God 
is true. How soon, I do not know. One day with 
Him is as a thousand years, and a thousand years 
as one day. We may hasten the victory by faithful- 
ness and devoted service to God's cause. 

Two practical questions approach the thought at 
this point : First, will the heathen and those not under 
the direct influence of the gospel in our own land be 
saved if we do not send them the gospel ? Second, will 
we be saved if we do not send it to them ? Salvation 
has to do with two worlds. "What must I do to be 
saved?" is a question which relates to society, com- 
merce, personal happiness, and home in this life, as 
196 



TKIUMPH OF THE REDEEMER'S KINGDOM. 

well as the salvation of the soul in the life that is 
to come. It is an incontrovertible fact that the 
heathen are not saved from the degradation of sin 
in this life without the gospel. As to the life that 
is to come, we need not discuss that question in this 
connection. So far as the second question is con- 
cerned — that is, Will we be saved if we do not see 
that they have it? — according to the express state- 
ments of Scripture, which is our only guide to faith 
in the future, we are commanded to take the gospel 
into all the world. If we refuse or neglect to obey 
God, the result is very clear to all who believe in 
the Word of God. As to this life, whether we be- 
lieve in the Word of God or not, we must conclude 
beyond question that the gospel of Christ does create 
and maintain a system of civilization which saves 
from many of the results of sin, and most thought- 
ful people are very ready to acknowledge that if the 
principles of the gospel were put into universal prac- 
tice, the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on 
the Mount, for example, we would be saved from all 
the moral evils incident to social and commercial 
life. Christian civilization has chained the world 
together. It is easy to go round the world. Chris- 
tian civilization has attractions for all. We must, 
in self-defense, to protect ourselves and our institu- 
197 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

tions, prompted by patriotism and love of home, if 
not for love of God, invest heavily in time, effort, 
and money to project the gospel into the corrupt 
places of our own land and every land, or we will 
not be saved in this life from the legitimate results 
of sin in this world, which is manifestly death and 
destruction ! 

But the gospel is being applied, and the result 
will be accomplished. There are some encouraging 
conditions and indications. Reason is the hand- 
maiden of faith, and reason indicates some encour- 
agement. Faith, goes infinitely beyond reason, and 
we can not depend upon the powers of rational be- 
ing to guide us in this important realm; but so far 
as reason goes, she walks arm in arm with faith. 
For a decade or more particularly, the craze seems 
to have raged throughout the Church to increase 
numbers regardless of weight or whether or not there 
were real conversions; and professionals have gone 
out by the thousands, some of them worthy, and many 
of them not, to accomplish this end. The result 
being that in many communities Churches are over- 
loaded with "drift wood," not only water-soaked, but, 
in some cases — God pity us ! — whisky soaked. Many 
of our Churches, like Gideon's army, would be 
strengthened if the numbers were reduced instead 
198 



TKIUMPH OF THE REDEEMER'S KINGDOM. 

of increased. It is true that the membership of 
our Churches has not increased very rapidly during 
the past year or two, but that is not so important 
as that real, vital power should be manifest. A good 
bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church once said 
that in his early life he was sent to a church hav- 
ing three hundred members, and he spent the first 
year getting two hundred of them out of the church, 
and he gave it as his opinion that it was one of 
the best year's work he ever did. A revival along 
the line of the efforts of the royal old hero, who has 
gone to his reward, might add strength to some of 
our churches, though it would decrease the number 
in the report columns. That this is being done to 
a large extent in our connection, in part accounts 
for the apparently slow growth in our membership 
during the recent past. And the movement should be 
hailed with thanksgiving by all lovers of God and 
His cause. I notice that the Church has immense 
appliances for the spread of the gospel to-day, 
greater than at any time in the history of the Church. 
Her buildings are more and better. Her colleges 
more and more heavily endowed, and there are more 
students in their halls. Her men and women, many 
of them, are cultured, and most of them fill im- 
portant, if limited, social positions. The means of 
199 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

travel and communications of thought and all means 
of accumulating information are better than ever be- 
fore. These instruments for the spread of the gospel 
are among the mandatory requisites of the Church. 
And there are proportionately as many to-day, no 
doubt, who are willing to make sacrifices to the cause 
of God as ever in the history of the world. 

Then, notice the law of accumulation to which 
the Savior calls attention. "To him that hath shall 
be given and he shall have in more abundance." Pos- 
session is the condition of accumulation. In busi- 
ness the first thousand, or "the start," is the difficult 
achievement. When some dollars are accumulated 
they will help accumulate others. A lawyer who has 
many clients will find that they draw others, and a 
physician who has many patients will have no diffi- 
culty in getting many more. A minister who has a 
large congregation finds that "a crowd draws a 
crowd." The same is true of intellectual accomplish- 
ments of the individual. The power to read makes 
possible the accumulation of facts in a greatly en- 
larged degree, and each fact helps in the accumula- 
tion of other facts. One spiritual experience makes 
more easy and certain the attaining of larger and 
better experiences. And this law of accumulation 
increases in emphasis as we rise in the scale of be- 
200 



TRIUMPH OF THE REDEEMER'S KINGDOM. 

ing. It is more emphatically true in the intellectual 
nature than in the merely secular and commercial 
sense and realm. It is more emphatically true in 
the spiritual realm than in any other. As we "add 
to our faith virtue and to our virtue knowledge," 
"grace and peace are multiplied unto us." As the 
Church has so many appliances and accomplishments 
when she awakens to her full duty and privilege, 
further accomplishments will be more easily reached. 
I notice, too, that there is further encouragement 
in the fact that living, vital truth is immortal and 
resistless. A great and exalting idea when set at 
liberty will never again be chained. "The kingdom 
of heaven is as leaven which a woman took and hid 
in three measures of meal until all was leavened." 
The process once commenced, there is no power that 
can stop the prosecution of the natural aggressive- 
ness of immortal and resistless truth. But the great 
and certain pledge of the ultimate triumph of the 
Redeemer's kingdom in the earth is the fact that 
the living God Himself is in and with His Church 
in the spread of the gospel and in making it a sav- 
ing force in the world. He is pledged with all His 
power, sealed with His demonstrated love for the race, 
to see that His promises are kept and his plans car- 
ried out. There is no use of the long-continued 
201 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

reign of sin in the earth. The adequate remedy has 
been provided. The agency has been called and com- 
missioned. There is no contingency but that the 
Church shall awaken to her duty and privilege, put 
on "her beautiful garments," and go forth to the 
conquest with "weapons not carnal, but mighty." 

Napoleon once called his Old Guard about him and 
said: "I need one hundred men for a very difficult 
and dangerous task. I can only promise hardship, 
danger, possible defeat, and death. I call for volun- 
teers. Let one hundred men step out of the ranks. 
Forward, march !" And the last one of the Old Guard 
stepped forward. God's service is a volunteer service. 
His call for service may be to sacrifice, but not to 
defeat. I believe that the Church universal will 
awaken to the duty and privilege of the hour. Al- 
ready the sleeping giantess is rousing and is opening 
her eyes to the conditions and possibilities. Soon 
with one foot upon the immutable rock of Christ- 
like love and the other on the unchanging and un- 
failing promises of God, stooping with dignified, de- 
termined humility, she will lift the dripping world 
out of the mire of sin and death and, bathing it in 
the pure sea of God's redeeming grace, will present 
it "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing" to 
the King of the universe whose bride she is. 
202 



He Changeth Not. 

SENTENCE PRAYER. 

O Thou never-failing, ever-loving, and forever-abiding 
God, impart to each of us Thy Holy Spirit, that we 
being "partakers of the divine nature," may render per- 
manent service in establishing Thy love in this world 
that the Prince of peace and love may have universal 
dominion. Amen. 

PARAGRAPH SERMON. 

Text, Heb. 13: 8, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, 
to-day, and forever." He changeth not. The seasons 
may come and go. Winter may give place to spring- 
time, and summer retire and give room for fruitful 
autumn. Nations may rise and fall. Generations may 
live and die. Friends may becomes foes, and foes be 
transformed into friends. Poverty may give place to 
riches, and riches may take to themselves wings and 
fly stealthily away and give place to gaunt poverty. 
Homes may change. Children may grow to manhood 
and womanhood, they may die and leave vacant chairs 
at a lonely fireside. All things earthly may change 
that by an over-ruling and ever-loving Providence a 
larger and deeper permanence may be established. But 
Christ is ever the same in power, goodness, love, and 
all the essentials of His divine nature. 



The Heroism of the Prince of Peace. 

"I find no fault in this Man." — Luke 23: 4. 

Individuals and events form the wheels and 
shafts with which the power and providential wis- 
dom of God moves the ages forward. Jesus of Naz- 
areth is the most important Person, and the tragedy 
of the cross the most important event in all the 
ages. 

All things with which God has to do in nature, 
in providence, or in grace indicate design which is 
worthy the Designer. That worth exists and con- 
sists, not only in the results to be achieved, but in 
the choice of method and appliance by which power 
shall be applied in the achievement of the divinely 
desired end. 

Some details of the divine designs may be ex- 
plained to finite intelligences when they see the phe- 
nomena-, but the failure to see the design is not proof 
that it does not exist. True, there is mystery all 
about us, but the mystery is in us and not in the 
things about us. Mystery is only another name for 
205 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

ignorance. That which we know now which we did 
not once understand was a mystery once, but is no 
longer such. And each fact newly discovered aids 
in the discovery and understanding of other facts. 
The evolution of the world from chaos into order, 
from a molten mass into plains, hills, seas, lakes, 
productive prairies, and forests, with teeming animal 
and blooming vegetable life, some of the processes of 
which are explained to us by modern science, are only 
partly explained to us as to God's design when we 
see man appear as the intelligent master of nature's 
mighty and beautiful forces. 

But when we see the evident moral depravity of 
the race, and witness deeds of vice below the beast 
and worthy of fiends, by beings with possibilities of 
character and abilities of intelligence worthy of sera- 
phim, creation is not yet fully explained as the act 
of an intelligent and benevolent Creator. Redemption 
from sin, so that by free choice of each moral being 
each might be an immortal and virtuous being making 
use of all earth's things and experiences to this end, 
would explain creation and vindicate its Creator. 
Such a plan is culminated on Calvary's cross. But 
such a reformation, if through faith in a Redeemer, 
must be through knowledge of the truth. The spread 
of the glad news to all the world, wherever human 
206 



THE HEROISM OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

beings are. And the final reformation of the earth 
through such faith, so that truth and virtue should 
prevail, not by fiat of Deity, but by the free choice 
of each individual believer, and the reception into 
an eternal world of glory of all who so use the pro- 
bationary period and experiences as to out of all 
build heavenly character, would explain creation, re- 
demption, and the divine authority of "the great com- 
mission." 

Creation is explained by the tragedy of the cross, 
and that event is explained by the final salvation of 
the world from the thraldom of sin, and heavenly 
glory for all who believe with a faith in Christ which 
commands their obedience to His will. 

God's great plan includes the salvation of man- 
kind through the agency of humanity. So that the 
Redeemer "took not on Him the form of angels, but 
the seed of Abraham." And the world is to be saved 
from its personal and social evils through the agency 
of men and women, not by the direct interposition of 
any superhuman power or being. 

There are three chief enemies to the evolution of 
the race toward God: Vice, ignorance, and supersti- 
tion. Each evil has its antidote, and nothing else 
will destroy it. Darkness is expunged by light, cold 
by heat, and hunger by food. Nothing but light will 
207 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

drive back the darkness ; so vice can only be destroyed 
by virtue, ignorance by knowledge, and superstition 
by intelligent faith in God. Every step of advance 
in civilization means the driving back or the destruc- 
tion of these enemies of civilization. And when the 
race seeks to advance, it finds the path guarded and 
defended by these enemies. It therefore requires 
heroism to overcome these enemies of human progress. 

The race is composed of individuals. Virtue, 
knowledge, and faith, the only weapons affecting vice, 
ignorance, and superstition, are individual qualities. 
All the progress of society must be made through the 
leadership of individuals. Every step which the race 
has made in the onward march of civilization has 
been made because of the sturdy, courageous, self- 
sacrificing efforts of definite personalities. Hence, a 
hero is a necessity. The struggling mind of man, 
reaching toward higher and nobler things, meeting 
mighty opposition in the way, can not make the 
effort without heroic leadership. 

Ideals are the advance guard of progress. An 
advancing civilization must be going toward an ideal. 
Hence, an ideal hero becomes a necessity. And 
as the elements of successful conquest lie in the 
direction of virtue, knowledge, and faith, that hero 
must have these elements to an ideal degree. 
208 



THE HEROISM OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

I have assigned to myself the pleasant task of 
undertaking to show, for our mutual encouragement 
and help, that Jesus Christ is such an ideal Hero; 
that He has manifested His heroism in such ways 
as command the admiration and applause of universal 
humanity; that He imparts to those who are asso- 
ciated with Him by a living, intelligent faith, the 
elements of His nature, and I will call your attention 
briefly to the inevitable conclusion that Christian 
heroism will some day make peaceful conquest of the 
earth, and the "kingdoms of this world" will have 
"become the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ/' 

What is heroism? What is it to be a hero? To 
be heroic is to be, as Bailey has said, "A world man 
in whose heart one passion stands for all." It is 
more than being willing to die. "The miserablest 
day we live there ? s many a better thing to do than 
dying." (Darley.) 

Let us mentally dissect the thought of heroism and 
find its constituent properties. Emerson says that 
"self-trust is the essence of heroism," and certainly 
none can be heroic who have not self-respect; and 
none can have self-respect who are not respectable. 
So that heroism lies deep in character. It is not 
doing something, it is being something. One may 
be a hero and not do a heroic thing, for "heroism is 
14 209 



THE KIXG'S CONQUEST. 

usually manifest on occasion." But the occasion does 
not make the hero, and one may be a hero and do 
no very heroic thing for lack of opportunity or want 
of necessity. 

One of the most important elements of true hero- 
ism is self-control. To be able to control oneself, 
to be master of every nerve and muscle, every pas- 
sion and thought, under the most severe and exciting 
test, is majestic. "He that ruleth his own spirit is 
greater than he that taketh a city." To be able with 
patience to abide one's time is a mighty pillar in 
heroic character. 

Christ acquired or at least possessed absolute self- 
rulership. For thirty years He lived in measurable 
seclusion, learning as all children learn in childhood, 
training His spirit as all youthful spirits must be 
trained, if at all. For He was set about by human 
limitations in His human nature. He was hungry 
and weary and troubled and sorrowful. Yet He 
awaited His time. Then, when He was brought be- 
fore Caiaphas from Gethsemane, He had no hasty or 
unkind word. When the mob threw dust at Him 
and stoned Him, and brought Him bound before 
Herod, He held Himself in absolute self-control. 
When He was scourged, no angry look or crease of 
weak shame marred His visage, but during all that 
210 



THE HEROISM OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

shameful night and the day which brought Him to 
the cross, His face was wreathed with the heavenly 
light of absolute self-mastery; and when earthly 
friends had fled, and angels were ready to defend 
Him, with deliberation of mind and calmness of 
spirit, He prayed tenderly for His executioners and 
betrayers. He is the world's only Ideal of absolute 
self-mastery. 

But there must also be in the heroic character 
unrelenting steadfastness and unrelenting firmness. 
Vacillation has no place in the composition of hero- 
ism. Christ was immovably steadfast. "The same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever." When He knew that 
the time was come that He should be received up, 
He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. 
But there must be in the true hero a gentleness equal 
to his firmness. Well-poised gentleness and firmness 
are the two wings with which heroic character must 
fly to the summit of successful conquest. They are 
the two oars with which the craft of heroism is to 
reach the shore of victory. One must not be greater 
or plied with more vigor than the other, else impedi- 
ment or disaster is the inevitable result. 

Captain Philip, of the Texas, who calmly stood 
upon the bridge of his battleship, with every man 
at his place, and when the opportune time arrived, set 
211 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

the heavens trembling by the discharge of booming 
guns, and with relentless and unerring precision 
pumped tons of shot and shell into the bursting, 
burning sides of the enemy's ships until the decks 
were slippery with blood and bestrewn with the man- 
gled forms of our Spanish foes, was an exhibition of 
heroism of which the American Eepublic would be 
ungrateful if it were not proud. But that was no 
more heroic than the equal kindness of heart and 
command of passion which lifted his hand and 
prompted him to say, with pathetic voice, "Don't 
cheer, boys ; they are dying," and which sent the tired 
sailors into the bloody sea to rescue their wounded 
enemies. 

"The victor looks over the shot-churned wave, 
At the riven ship of his foemen brave, 

And the men in their life-blood lying; 
And the joy of conquest leaves his eyes, 
The lust of fame and battle dies, 

And he says, "Do n't cheer, boys, they 're dying." 

"Cycles have passed since Bayard the brave, — 
Passed since Sydney the water gave, 

On Zutphen's red sod lying; 
But the knightly echo has lingered far — 
It rang in the words of the Yankee "tar," 

When he said, "Do n't cheer, boys, they 're dying." 

At the battle of Antietam, during the Eebellion, 
a commissary sergeant, who was a boy only eighteen 
212 



THE HEROISM OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

years of age, had been left in charge of a wagon train 
of supplies in the rear of the fighting column. The 
day wore on, and the battle grew fiercer and fiercer. 
The boy had received no orders to go to the front, 
but he knew that his regiment would be famishing 
for food, and the enemy was between his retreat and 
the regiment. He was not trained to war, but only 
a few months before he had been kissed good-night 
and tucked softly in bed, with the benediction of a 
Christian mother's prayers. He has no merely sol- 
dierly duty to perform, for no order has been re- 
ceived. In the afternoon he grew nervous and anx- 
ious about his comrades at the front as he heard the 
heavy firing. He called for volunteers. He himself 
took the reins of the leading team. At double-quick 
they made through the enemy's lines, the shot scream- 
ing on every hand, until he reached his famishing 
regiment. His courage and heroism, his relentless 
persistency, was rewarded by his colonel recommend- 
ing him for promotion. The promotion was granted. 
That regiment was the 23d Ohio. The colonel was 
Rutherford B. Hayes. The eighteen-year-old commis- 
sary sergeant was "William McKinley. That persist- 
ency was heroic, but indicates the greatness of his 
character no more than the nurse-like tenderness and 
the constant devotion with which, in the midst of the 
213 



THE KIXG'S CONQUEST. 

most arduous and perplexing duties which engaged a 
Chief Executive since the days of Lincoln, he cared 
for his sick wife and the manner in which he thus 
hallowed the American home. Gentleness is heroic. 
Jesus was the essence of tenderness. He took little 
children in His arms and blessed them. A penitent 
sinner heard His tender voice saying, "Go thy way 
and sin no more." 

His gentleness was only equaled by His unbending 
firmness and stability of purpose. 

It almost goes without saying that courage is a 
constituent part of heroic character. Merely physical 
courage is to be distinguished from moral courage. 
Many men can stand at the cannon's mouth without 
a tremor who will tremble under the smallest tempta- 
tion to wrong-doing. Peter could draw his sword in 
defense of his Lord, but when he was taunted with 
being one of His disciples, the moral coward cursed 
and denied his Lord. Again, some are proof against 
such temptations, but are not proof against the al- 
luring notes of flattery. Jesus was absolutely fearless 
and was absolutely unrelenting in the presence of any 
temptation. He came from His forty days' battle in 
the wilderness without a single taint of evil, though 
Satan's vantage ground of solitude had been the 
battlefield. He defied the social customs of the time 
214 



THE HEEOISM OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

when it was to His purpose to do so. He talked with 
a woman, and a Samaritan woman at that, when it 
was contrary to custom for a man to speak to any 
woman publicly, and the Jews had no dealings what- 
ever with the Samaritans. He accepted an invitation 
to dine with a Roman tax collector when such were 
despised by the people of His race. He observed the 
customs of society when it suited His purposes to 
do so, and went to a wedding in Cana. He also 
attended a banquet given in His own honor at the 
house of Simon. On one occasion, when they wanted 
Him to be crowned king, He refused the proffered 
honor with as much promptness as He accepted the 
invitation to dine with the publican. 

When He was taken in the Garden, He extended 
His hands to be bound, and as they led Him before 
Pilate there was not a struggle on His part to be 
released. He bent His back for the cruel scourging, 
which was so painful that onlookers turned their 
heads from the sight, yet He met it without a tremor. 
They took Him to Calvary. There are three crosses, 
and three sockets cut in the rock to receive them. 
Two thieves are nailed to the two which are placed 
in the outside apertures; the other cross is laid upon 
the earth. Jesus is led to it, and is placed upon the 
rugged wood. But He does not struggle. Two strong 
215 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

soldiers roughly put His hands in place, but one would 
have been enough, for He battles not for release. 
They drive the nails in His hands, but He does not 
cry out. They lift Him, and drop the cross into the 
socket, but there is no pleading that the pain be less. 
They offer Him the usual potion for deadening pain, 
but He turns His head and refuses it. Greater phys- 
ical heroism was never seen before; it will never be 
seen again. 

He gave His life. "He had power to lay it down, 
and He had power to take it again." This Star of 
courage is the brightest in the constellation of the 
ages. 

But I note, now, that these elements must be mani- 
fest for a worthy object, else they do not indicate hero- 
ism. One who leaps into the surging sea or rushes 
into the roaring flame to exhibit strength or daring 
or to save some trifling trinket, is foolhardy, not 
heroic. He who would go into the ring to pound and 
be pounded is using physical power in a manner to 
degrade and not to help. But he who risks life in 
flood or flame to save life is courageous. And heavy 
blows exercised in the defense of the sanctity of the 
home, the virtue of woman, or the innocence of child- 
hood, may be as musical as the strains of an angel's 
harp and as pure as a mother's good-night kiss. 
216 



THE HEROISM OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

The object of Christ's self-mastery, firmness, 
gentleness, and courage were the most worthy and 
dignified that could engage intelligent attention. 
"He came to seek and to save that which was lost/' 
"He suffered the just for the unjust to bring us to 
God." "He was wounded for our trangressions. The 
chastisement of our people was upon Him, and with 
His stripes we are healed." This gives the most 
burnished charm and exalted dignity to His deeds 
and stamps them as superlatively heroic. 

I note, now, that the heroism of Jesus was mani- 
fest in those ways which, when they are properly 
brought to the attention of humanity, command uni- 
versal admiration and praise. So that it is literally 
true that if Christ be lifted up, His heroic character 
attracts all men. For, as Carlyle has said, "Hero 
worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist 
universally among mankind." When the ideal Hero 
is presented, all men will admire Him and praise 
Him, and the tendency will be to follow Him. 

There is a universal admiration for those who 
risk life or lose life to save the lives of others. Such 
an one is universally admired. This hardly needs 
elaboration, the fact is so patent. In my native State 
of Iowa, many years ago, a plain working-girl, 
a little past sixteen, unwittingly made her name 
217 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

a household word by a risk of life to save the lives of 
others. Near Boone, on the Chicago & Northwestern 
Railroad, crossing the Des Moines River, was a long 
trestlework bridge, more than five hundred feet in 
length, and standing above the river more than one 
hundred and fifty feet. A mile to the west is the 
little town of Moingona. East of the bridge, some 
little distance, was another bridge over Honey Creek. 
Between Honey Creek and the Des Moines River, near 
the railway track, in a little cottage lived Kate Shel- 
ley, her mother, and younger brothers and sisters. 
Kate's father had been the night-watchman at the 
bridge, but he was then dead. There was a terrible 
thunder storm, and floods had gathered in the creek 
and river. It was past nine o'clock, and no moon. 
The rain was falling in torrents, and the wind was 
blowing fiercely. Kate was looking out of the window 
of the cottage, fearing that the listless night-watch 
would be afraid of such a storm and fail to do his 
duty. She knew the danger, and looked toward 
Honey Creek. She saw the headlight of a freight 
engine drop into the creek, and she knew that Honey 
Creek bridge was gone. Moingona was the nearest 
station to warn. The river bridge was between her 
cottage and the station. She started on the perilous 
journey, thinking only of the passenger train from 
218 



THE HEROISM OF THE PEINCE OF PEACE. 

the West, which would be due in a short time. She 
went to the bridge and started across the slippery 
ties. The wind swept so hard that she could not 
stand, but was obliged to creep on her hands and 
knees. The only light she had was the flashes of 
lightning. The thunders seemed treading every tie. 
The turbulent waves were rolling below. The rain 
dashed into her face and almost blinded her eyes. 
Her shoes were worn from her toes, and her knees 
were leaving bloody drops on every tie before she 
reached the shore. She leaped to her feet as soon as 
she had crossed the bridge, ran in the face of the 
rain and hail, falling exhausted on the floor of the 
telegraph office, having barely strength enough to say, 
"Honey Creek bridge is gone." The train was near. 
The operator flashed the news along the line. The 
train was flagged. No wonder that weeping ladies in 
silks smoothed the disheveled locks of Kate and pro- 
nounced blessings upon her. No wonder that the 
great State by its Legislature ordered a special medal 
made for her and made an appropriation for her sup- 
port. No wonder that the Chicago and Northwestern 
Eailroad Company has named its new million-dollar 
bridge over the Des Moines Eiver "Kate Shelley 
Bridge." The world admires and applauds one who 
risks life to save life. Christ gave His life a ransom 
219 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

for others. "To save unto the uttermost all who come 
unto God by Him/' 

He who gives liberty to his fellows is universally 
admired and honored. This is true of physical free- 
dom. There is not so bright a page in Eussian his- 
tory as that which records the freeing of twenty-two 
millions of surfs by Alexander II. And because of 
that act, no name in Russia's honor roll is so uni- 
versally admired as that of the breaker of those in 
bonds. But intellectual, political, and religious lib- 
erty have placed high upon the escutcheon of honor 
such names as William of Orange and Washington. 
Christ is the Great Liberator of the race. He died 
to make men free. "And whom the Son makes free 
is free indeed." 

The world admires self-sacrifice. I do not mean 
that all men practice self-abnegation to a very large 
degree, but we do not always do those things which 
we admire in others. Selfish impulses often bind the 
soul when the better elements of the being sigh for 
the freedom witnessed in others. While it may be 
true that some degree of selfishness is quite univer- 
sally practiced, unselfishness is universally admired. 
There is universal recognition of the fact that the 
most highly prized possessions can only be obtained 
and the most highly prized achievements be wrought 
220 



THE HEEOISM OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

when there is widespread self-abnegation of the truly 
benevolent. 

At Colloden, Scotland, there was fought, on April 
16, 1746, a terrific and bloody battle, which settled 
the fate of the house of Stuart. The sands were 
saturated with the blood of the noble dead. In a 
few months there appeared, growing in profusion that 
covered the battlefield with a carpet-like beauty, beau- 
tiful little blue flowers of a kind unknown to the 
botanists of the time. These flowers had sprung from 
the blood-soaked soil. The seed had lain dormant for 
centuries, possibly for ages. "Water could not coax 
the germs of life into vital action. These germs 
needed a baptism of human blood to make them grow. 
They were named the Colloden flower. 

The flowers of highest virtue and most exalted 
nobility spring into life only when baptized with the 
warm flow of human sacrifice — self-abnegation and 
service for others. The life and death of Jesus of 
Nazareth constitute the most exquisite and faultless 
exhibits of superlative self-abnegation ever witnessed 
by the eye of man. 

He was rich, and His riches were worth while. 
He became poor, and that poverty was inestimable. 

His heroism was manifest in saving life, in giv- 
ing liberty, and in abject self-sacrifice. These ap- 
221 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

peal to the nobler elements of mind and heart in 
universal humanity. 

Christ the superlative Hero not only awakens ad- 
miration for those who consider Him, but that ad- 
miration becomes impassioned love which impresses 
the soul of the one who commits all to Him in con- 
secration and submits to be led by Him in Christian 
discipleship, with the same spirit of heroism, its 
manifestation being, of course, modified and limited 
by the opportunities and limitations of the individual 
disciple. 

The spirit of the truly heroic is imbibed from 
Him. There is no true and full-orbed heroism where 
He is unknown. Some of its elements may be pos- 
sessed, but there can be no rotund heroic character 
that is not built by His inspiration and after the pat- 
tern of His life. His Spirit imparts the all-con- 
quering elements of heroic character. 

Christendom's tabulated list of heroes would be 
long and brilliant, but above them all, like a canopy 
of light, there must sweep, to be true to fact, the name 
that God hath highly exalted and placed above every 
name, the name from which all others receive their 
luster if they shine, the name of Jesus of Nazareth, 
the world's Ideal Hero. 

Standing on the Alpine heights of the protruding, 
222 



THE HEROISM OF THE PRINCE OF PEACE. 

shelving rocks of the first decade of this mighty cen- 
tury, looking down the valleys of the future, not by 
prophecy, but by the light of reason and promise, I 
see a world without a shackled slave held in bondage 
of body, mind, or soul. All men are as free as the 
air they breathe. The world is deluged with plenty. 
No shriveled beggar stretches his quivering hand for 
unwilling charity. Vice has hidden its unshapely and 
repulsive face, and Virtue's radiant countenance 
cheers with optimistic hope. Her immaculate palm 
is extended in persuasive invitation to youth, who is 
led with laughing joy along the pathway of pure, in- 
telligent, noble, and useful endeavor. 

The grim-visaged specters of superstition have fled 
before the light of intelligent faith in the super- 
natural, and a well-poised confidence in God imparts 
abiding peace and quiverless hope in the presence of 
all mysteries of Providence and grace. There is uni- 
versal peace between man and man, clan and clan, 
class and class, nation and nation. For the Prince 
of peace prevails. Nations shall not learn war any 
more. Battleships are dismantled, the professional 
man-slayer has been discharged, "swords are beaten 
into plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks." 
Implements of war have been fashioned into imple- 
ments of peace and for the production of plenty. 
223 



THE KING'S CONQUEST. 

The wilderness and the solitary place are glad, the 
desert blossoms as the rose under the touch of the 
heroic might of the King of kings and Lord of lords. 
The immaculate Hero of peaceful conquest reigns, and 
"the kingdoms of this world have become the king- 
doms of our Lord and of His Christ." 



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